Download - 50/- - CSI INDIAcsi-india.org/communications/CSIC September 2012.pdf · The cover themes for forthcoming issues of CSI Communications are: • October 2012 - Cyber Music • November

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Technical TrendsApplications of Digital Image Watermarking in Industries 5

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Technical TrendsA Conspectus of Soft Data Mining in Bioinformatics 8

Technical TrendsMedical Tourism - a Business &Technology Perspective 11

ArticleSocial Media - Marketers’ New Playing Field 15

ArticleGSM - R (Global System for Mobile Communication - Railway) 18

ArticleThe Evolution of COBIT 21

The cover themes for forthcoming issues of CSI Communications are:

• October 2012 - Cyber Music • November 2012 - Embedded Systems• December 2012 - Intelligent Systems • January 2013 - Enterprise 2.0• February 2013 - Programming Language Paradigms• March 2013 - e-Libraries

(Future topics will be announced on an ongoing basis)The Editorial Board of CSI Communications is looking for high-quality technical articles for diff erent columns pertaining to the above themes or emerging and current interests. The articles should cover all aspects of computing, information, and communication technologies that should be of interest to readers at large and member fraternity of CSI and around. The articles may be long (2500-3000 words) or short (1000-1500 words) authored in as the original text (plagiarism is strictly prohibited). The articles shall be peer reviewed by experts decided by the Editorial board and the selected ones shall be published. Both theoretical- and practice-based articles are welcome. The articles and contributions may be submitted in the following categories: Cover Story, Research Front, Technical Trends, and Article.

CIOs/Senior IT/IS personnel/consultants of the companies managing technologies/projects related to the cover themes are welcome to contribute under the CIO (Managing Technology) section. Similarly, HR Senior Managers/Personnel/Consultants are invited to contribute under HR section.

Also, Letters to the Editors, questions to be answered in Ask an Expert, your experience to share some Programming Tips under the Practitioner Workbench: Programming.Tips() are welcome.

How to submit the contributions: The articles may be sent to the CSI Editorial Board via email [email protected].

Article Submission guidelines:• All manuscripts should be written at the level of the

general audience of varied level of members.• Equations and mathematical expressions within articles

are not recommended, however, if absolutely necessary, should be minimum.

• List of references is preferred. List not more than 10 references at the end of your manuscript. Please don’t include any embedded reference numbers within the text of your article. If you would to like to refer, you may state names in the text and provide full reference at the end. The reference must state the names of the authors, title, publisher’s name, complete publication reference with month and year. Web URLs should be there for website references with accessed date.

• Figures and Images used should be limited to maximum of three (only high-resolution images need to be sent, and the image needs to be sent separately as well).

• Only MS-Word and PDF submissions are allowed.• Include a brief biography of four to six lines for each author

with author picture (high resolution).• Editors will edit the contents as felt necessary. • Authors of selected articles will be notifi ed by the editorial

board and copyright transfer form needs to be fi lled up by the authors.

• Only original contributions are requested and no plagiarismis allowed.

Please note that months for various cover themes are tentative and may change depending on prevailing circumstances.

(Issued on behalf of the Editors of CSI Communications)

CSI Communications - Call for Articles for forthcoming issues

Prof. DVR Vithal (Fellow CSI) writes -Dear Mr President:

Compliments on the Golden Jubilee initiative - History of CSI. We take pride in that History of computing in India is largely History of CSI. Do launch Hall of Fame and Prajna Awards (prestigious like Turing awards). Suggest an update in each issue of the Communications on history articles/material received with appeal to do more and enthuse others too to send. It is but apt that fi rst tranche is from Kolkata.

Congratulations to the Editorial Team.

With warm regardsProf Vithal

Mr. MD Agrawal (Past President) writes -

I was in Delhi, met Dr Subramanium, Ex Dy Director General of NIC. He was appreciating our CSIC.

md

Prof. R T Goswami (Director, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Kolkata Campus) writes -

design and arranging order is really very good.

Tamal

Prof. Phalguni Mukherjee (CSI Region II Student Coordinator) writes – Dear All,

Received the August issue of Communication yesterday. An excellent piece of work is done by Debasish. Thanks to DP Sinha also. Many unknown things can be known from this issue. In fact, it is a rare collection for CSI lovers. Once again congratulation to Debasish and his team for bringing out this novel idea.

Best wishes,Phalguni Mukherjee

Prof. Punam Kumar Saha (Associate Professor, University of Iowa, USA) writes:

Great!Fantastic.

Punam

Mr. Ramanuj Bhattacharya, Chicago, USA (Contributor in Computing in Kolkata - Strolling Down Memory Lane in CSIC August 2012 issue) writes:

Great job. I have received the printed copy as well. Best wishes, Ramanuj

Prof. Sarmistha Neogy (Chairperson, IEEE Computer Society Chapter of IEEE Kolkata Section) writes:

great job!!

ReaderSpeak()

CSI Communications | September 2012 | 1

ContentsVolume No. 36 • Issue No. 6 • September 2012

CSI Communications

Editorial Board

Chief EditorDr. R M Sonar

EditorsDr. Debasish JanaDr. Achuthsankar Nair

Resident EditorMrs. Jayshree Dhere

AdvisorsDr. T V GopalMr. H R Mohan

Published byExecutive Secretary Mr. Suchit GogwekarFor Computer Society of India

Design, Print and Dispatch byCyberMedia Services Limited

Please note:CSI Communications is published by Computer Society of India, a non-profi t organization. Views and opinions expressed in the CSI Communications are those of individual authors, contributors and advertisers and they may diff er from policies and offi cial statements of CSI. These should not be construed as legal or professional advice. The CSI, the publisher, the editors and the contributors are not responsible for any decisions taken by readers on the basis of these views and opinions.Although every care is being taken to ensure genuineness of the writings in this publication, CSI Communications does not attest to the originality of the respective authors’ content. © 2012 CSI. All rights reserved.Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles for non-commercial classroom use without fee. For any other copying, reprint or republication, permission must be obtained in writing from the Society. Copying for other than personal use or internal reference, or of articles or columns not owned by the Society without explicit permission of the Society or the copyright owner is strictly prohibited.

Published by Suchit Gogwekar for Computer Society of India at Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, MIDC, Andheri (E), Mumbai-400 093.Tel. : 022-2926 1700 • Fax : 022-2830 2133 • Email : [email protected] Printed at GP Off set Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai 400 059.

Technical Trends

5 Applications of Digital Image Watermarking in Industries

Baisa L Gunjal andDr. Suresh N Mali

8 A Conspectus of Soft Data Mining in Bioinformatics

Satya Ranjan Dash and Satchidananda Dehuri

1 1 Medical Tourism - a Business &Technology Perspective

Radha M De and Diptiman Dasgupta

Articles

1 5 Social Media - Marketers’ New Playing Field

Dr. Anil Vaidya

1 8 GSM - R (Global System for Mobile Communication - Railway)

Prof. (Dr.) V Purnachandra Rao

2 1 The Evolution of COBIT Avinash W Kadam

Practitioner Workbench

23 Programming.Tips() » Fun with Diophantine Equations in C Wallace Jacob

24 Programming.Learn (“Python”) »

“CGI Python” Umesh P

CIO Perspective

25 Managing Technology » Business Information Systems:

Changing Roles of CIOs Dr. R M Sonar

HR

29 Shared Services Organization Dr. Manish Godse

Security Corner

30 Information Security »

Electronic Evidence & Cyber Law Adv. Prashant Mali

IT Act 2000 »

32 Prof. IT Law in Conversation with Mr. IT Executive: Issue No. 6 Mr. Subramaniam Vutha

PLUSIT.Yesterday(): Ferranti (ICT) SIRIUS Computer at NAL, Bangalore (1963-1970)Dr. R Srinivasan

33

Brain TeaserDr. Debasish Jana

35

Ask an ExpertDr. Debasish Jana

36

Happenings@ICT: ICT News Briefs in August 2012H R Mohan

37

On the Shelf! Book ReviewDr. Suneeta Sane

38

CSI ReportAnirban Basu

39

CSI News 44

CSI Communications | September 2012 | 2 www.csi-india.org

* Access is for CSI members only.

Important Contact Details »For queries, correspondence regarding Membership, contact [email protected]

Know Your CSIExecutive Committee (2012-13/14) »

President Vice-President Hon. SecretaryMr. Satish Babu Prof. S V Raghavan Mr. S [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Hon. Treasurer Immd. Past PresidentMr. V L Mehta Mr. M D [email protected] [email protected]

Nomination Committee (2012-2013)Dr. D D Sarma Mr. Bipin V Mehta Mr. Subimal Kundu

Regional Vice-PresidentsRegion - I Region - II Region - III Region - IVMr. R K Vyas Prof. Dipti Prasad Mukherjee Mr. Anil Srivastava Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North Eastern States Rajasthan and other areas Orissa and other areas inUttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and and other areas in in Western India Central & Southother areas in Northern India. East & North East India [email protected] Eastern [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Region - V Region - VI Region - VII Region - VIIIProf. D B V Sarma Mr. C G Sahasrabudhe Mr. Ramasamy S Mr. Pramit MakodayKarnataka and Andhra Pradesh Maharashtra and Goa Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, International [email protected] [email protected] Andaman and Nicobar, [email protected] Kerala, Lakshadweep [email protected]

Division Chairpersons, National Student Coordinator & Publication Committee ChairmanDivision-I : Hardware (2011-13) Division-II : Software (2012-14) Division-III : Applications (2011-13) National Student CoordinatorDr. C R Chakravarthy Dr. T V Gopal Dr. Debesh Das Mr. Ranga Raj [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Division-IV : Communications Division-V : Education and Research Publication Committee (2012-14) (2011-13) ChairmanMr. Sanjay Mohapatra Chairman Division V Prof. R K Shyamsundar [email protected] To be announced [email protected]

Important links on CSI website »Structure & Organisation http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/structureNational, Regional & http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/structure/nsc State Students CoordinatorsStatutory Committees http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/statutory-committees Collaborations http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/collaborations Join Now - http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/joinRenew Membership http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/renewMember Eligibility http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/eligibilityMember Benefi ts http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/benifi tsSubscription Fees http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/subscription-feesForms Download http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/forms-downloadBABA Scheme http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/baba-schemePublications http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/publicationsCSI Communications* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/info-center/communicationsAdhyayan* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/adhyayanR & D Projects http://csi-india.org/web/csi/1204Technical Papers http://csi-india.org/web/csi/technical-papersTutorials http://csi-india.org/web/csi/tutorialsCourse Curriculum http://csi-india.org/web/csi/course-curriculumTraining Program http://csi-india.org/web/csi/training-programs(CSI Education Products)Travel support for International http://csi-india.org/web/csi/travel-supportConferenceeNewsletter* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/enewsletterCurrent Issue http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/current-issueArchives http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/archivesPolicy Guidelines http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/helpdeskEvents http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/events1President’s Desk http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/infocenter/president-s-desk

ExecCom Transacts http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/execcom-transacts1News & Announcements archive http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/announcementsCSI Divisions and their respective web linksDivision-Hardware http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division1Division Software http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division2Division Application http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division3Division Communications http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division4Division Education and Research http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division5List of SIGs and their respective web linksSIG-Artifi cial Intelligence http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-aiSIG-eGovernance http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-egovSIG-FOSS http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-fossSIG-Software Engineering http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-seSIG-DATA http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sigdataSIG-Distributed Systems http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-dsSIG-Humane Computing http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-humaneSIG-Information Security http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-sig-isSIG-Web 2.0 and SNS http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-web-2.0SIG-BVIT http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-bvitSIG-WNs http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-fwnsSIG-Green IT http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-green-itSIG-HPC http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-hpcSIG-TSSR http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-tssrOther Links -Forums http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/discuss-share/forumsBlogs http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/discuss-share/blogsCommunities* http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/discuss-share/communitiesCSI Chapters http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chaptersCalendar of Events http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-eventcalendar


I compose this issue of the President's Message from Kuala Lumpur, where I'm representing CSI and SEARCC at the Global Conference on Computing Ethics (GCCE 2012), organized by the Malaysian National Computer Confederation (MNCC). As I refl ect upon the relevance of Computing Ethics in India as well as around the world, I see several emerging areas, some of which I will share with you.

Computing Ethics today has gone beyond its original defi nition, which was largely restricted to the computational role in areas such as scientifi c or business computing. Today, ICTs have become the most widely, diversely, and fl exibly used technologies in the history of humankind. Networks— whether computer, human, or social—now span the world, posing a number of challenges to the established ways of communicating, learning, working, playing, or living. In many countries, including our own, the IT Industry has become not only a large employer of the best talent, but also the most prolifi c innovator of all time. On the fl ip side, issues of inappropriate use of ICTs ranging from unsafe content, cyber crime, cyber terrorism or cyber war, also threaten established structures of the economy, society, and polity.

Computing Ethics have to be seen through this prism of what ICT/IT represents today. When examined this way, computing ethics covers a fairly large area of intellectual content, including the traditional ethics and morality, law, politics, and business & social use of technology.

One of the most important roles of CSI's mandate as a national computer society is in inculcating ethics amongst computing professionals. An important concept in this regard is that of a voluntary Code of Ethics (CoE) for members, which CSI did have from its early days. However, the explosive growth of the IT Industry in the last two decades may perhaps necessitate taking a new look at our CoE, and if necessary, enhancing its contemporary relevance. We also need to actively disseminate the CoE to our members, especially students, so that we bring up the next generations of IT professionals with a fi rm ethical base from which to operate as professionals. This will have lasting strategic benefi ts, and would be one of the most eff ective ways how CSI can contribute to our nation.

Another role that CSI can play at the social level is in developing and maintaining a set of guidelines for the use of computers in society. In India, there is some amount of confusion within diff erent stakeholders—particularly amongst parents and teachers on the one hand, and youth and students on the other—on matters such as use of technology, online content monitoring, and child safety. CSI, as a users' organization, certainly can and should play a role developing such guidelines.

At another level, there is also currently a national and international debate between diff erent top-level stakeholders —such as Governments, Content Providers, Business, and Civil Society—on matters relating to content control vis-à-vis concerns such as national security and internal harmony. This is a matter that perhaps is diffi cult to settle for

all times, and may need an ongoing negotiating mechanism at the national level. If such a mechanism is created, CSI, as a neutral, multistakeholder entity, can certainly play a role in it. In some countries, new national bodies are being proposed to play the role of the maintainer and disseminator of a national Voluntary Code of Conduct, but we have to choose our own model as appropriate.

Some of the confl ict that we see today in this debate on contentious areas such as censorship has an ethical dimension as well. We do have examples of ethically superior models such as Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the purely technological realms of software creation, distribution, and ownership. It is interesting to observe that FOSS has been developed by practitioners—engineers, technologists, and programmers—themselves. However, no similar models exist for the national-level governance of technology.

Given that these are technologies of the 21st Century, and that the traditional systems are trying to govern them using laws of the 20th and 19th centuries, and given further that there is a trans-generational disparity between the users (mostly the youth) and the administrators (typically the older generation), some of this confl ict is inevitable.

It is time for the international community to consider framing of an entirely new legal framework for the governance of technology, perhaps modeled after the 1948 landmark legal instrument, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which boldly proclaimed a new and unprecedented vision and philosophy for humankind.

A similar bold, innovative, coherent, and forward-looking techno-legal framework may be necessary to govern ICTs, given their unique nature. The development of such a framework must be through an inclusive process with wide consultations between all relevant stakeholders. CSI, as a Civil Society organization representing several communities such as students, academia, researchers, and users, must gear itself up to participate in these processes and help achieve this vision.

With best wishes,

Satish BabuPresident

President’s Message Satish Babu

From : [email protected] : President’s DeskDate : 1st September, 2012

Dear Members


Editorial Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair, Debasish Jana and Jayshree DhereEditors

We welcome our readers to this September 2012 issue. In this issue we were supposed to cover a theme called Multimedia Mining. However, we did not receive enough contributions on the suggested topic and so decided to go for a general topic of IT applications to give justice to the type of articles received by contributors. We are also skipping some of the sections like research front.

The technical trend section has three articles: fi rst one by Prof. Gunjal and Dr. Suresh N Mali on Applications of Digital Image Watermarking in Industries. The article focuses on applications in IP protection, health care, Criminal photograph authentication and transmission, Secured e-voting systems required for elections, Remote Education and Insurance.

Many fi rms are increasingly looking towards social media as one of the channels to reach to large number of customers.

The second article is on Soft Data Mining in Bioinformatics by Satya Ranjan Dash and Satchidananda Dehuri of School of Computer Application, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar; while third article under technology management series is by Radha M Dey and Diptiman Dasgupta of IBM, wherein they discuss Medical Tourism: its lifecycle, Business Opportunities and Ecosystem, Role of Information Technology and also cover information about Electronic Medical Records.

Many fi rms are increasingly looking towards social media as one of the channels to reach to large number of customers. Dr. Anil Vaidya, who has been a regular contributor to CSI-C covers this subject and discusses how social Media has become New Playing Field for marketing people. Prof. (Dr.) V Purnachandra Rao of Institute of Signal Engineering & Telecommunications (IRISET), Secunderabad writes about what is GSM-R: Global System for Mobile Communication-Railway and illustrates its architecture.

Avinash W Kadam, Advisor, ISACA’s India Task Force has contributed an article about The Evolution of COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies) Framework, which is helping organizations worldwide to implement IT Governance. He talks about various versions of COBIT and COBIT 5 in more details and will be contributing more articles in future on this subject.

… The Evolution of COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies) Framework, which is helping organizations worldwide to implement IT Governance.

Prof. Wallace Jacob has been contributing in Practitioner Workbench column under section Programming.Tips(), and

in this issue his contribution is about fun with Diophantine Equations in C. Diophantine Equation is indeterminate polynomial equation that allows the variables to be integers only. The other section called Programming.Learn("Python") under Practitioner Workbench covers guidelines on CGI (common gateway interface) using Python. In his series of articles on business information systems, Dr. R M Sonar this time focuses on how roles, functions and responsibilities of CIOs are changing with evolution in technology.

In the Information Security section of the Security Corner column, Adv. Prashant Mali writes about Electronic Evidence & Cyber Law. Another section called IT Act 2000 under Security Corner is enriched with a writeup byAdv. Subramaniam Vutha, where he focuses on electronic signatures and explains how they are used in e-commerce to “authenticate” the parties involved through a Q&A style. Dr. Manish Godse, in HR column introduces the readers to shared services: how they are implemented, driving factors, role of ICT and outsourcing of such services.

As suggested by Dr DVR Vithal, we have started a new column called IT.Yesterday() in this issue. ….. You all are welcome to contribute your experiences of yesteryears of computing and of CSI for this column.

As suggested by Dr DVR Vithal, we have started a new column called IT.Yesterday() in this issue. This time Dr. R Srinivasan takes the readers to 1960s by explaining elements, features, working and architecture of Ferranti (ICT) SIRIUS Computer at National Aerospace Laboratories. You all are welcome to contribute your experiences of yesteryears of computing and of CSI for this column.

As usual there are other regular features such as Brain Teaser, Ask an Expert, On the Shelf and Happenings@ICT. CSI Reports and CSI News section provide event details of various regions, SIGs, chapters and student branches. There are many diff erent announcements of various types of CSI awards. We have also compiled some of the feedback received from distinguished readers for your information under ReaderSpeak() on backside of front cover.

Please note that we welcome your feedback, contributions and suggestions at [email protected].

With warm regards,Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair,Debasish Jana and Jayshree DhereEditors

Dear Fellow CSI Members,


Digital watermarking has been a popular topic for both researches and applications in the last decade. With rapid development in multimedia technology and vast Internet use, it has become a common practice to create copy, transmit, and distribute digital data. Obviously, it leads to unauthorized replication problem. The digital watermarking system is an eff ective technique for protecting the copyright of the digital production and the data safety maintenance. Fig. 1 shows generalized concept of image watermarking. Image watermarking can assure the integrality and the reliability of the digital information by examining and analyzing the watermarking[4]. Consequently, it becomes an available method for intellectual property protection and digital multimedia anticounterfeiting techniques. This article focuses on fundamentals of digital image watermarking and its applications in industry.

Fig. 1: Generalized concept of image watermarking

Image Watermarking Classifi cationAs shown in Fig. 2, Watermarking algorithms can be classifi ed on several criteria[1,7].

According to Embedding Domain:i) Spatial domain, ii) Frequency/transform domain, andiii) Temporal domainAccording to Extractor:i) Blind andii) NonblindAccording to Human Perception:i) Visible andii) Nonvisible -a) Robust and b) Fragile

According to Application:i) Source-based andii) Application-based

Fig. 2: General classifi cati on of watermarking

In spatial domain, watermark is embedded by directly modifying pixel values of cover

image as shown in Fig. 2. Least Signifi cant Bit (LSB) insertion is example of spatial domain watermarking. These algorithms are simple in implementation[8,13]. But problems with such algorithms are: low watermark information hiding capacity, less security; hence anybody can detect such algorithms.

Original Image

143 143 143 143143 143 143 143143 143 143 143143 143 143 143

Watermark

36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36

Watermarked_Image

130 130 130 130130 130 130 130130 130 130 130130 130 130 130

Extracted_Watermark

32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32

Fig. 3: Spati al domain watermarking

In frequency domain, the watermark is inserted into transformed coeffi cients of image giving more information-hiding capacity and more robustness against watermarking attacks because information can be spread out to entire image[1]. Watermarking using Discrete Wavelet Transform, Discrete Cosine Transform, and CDMA-based Spread Spectrum Watermarking are examples of Transform Domain Watermarking. Any digital image watermarking method has two main counterparts: embedding algorithm and extraction algorithm[5]. Embedding algorithm is step-by-step process of inserting watermark logo into original cover image to form watermarked image. Extraction algorithm is just reverse process to extract embedded watermark from watermarked image.

Cover Image

WatermarkWatermarked

Image

InverseDWT

(IDWT)/Inverse2D DCT

EMBEDDING

N LevelDWT/2D

DCT

N LevelDWT/2D

DCT

Fig. 4: Transform domain image watermark embedding

Fig. 4 shows sample schematic embedding algorithm in transform domain. Here, frequency domain like Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) or Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) etc. are used as embedding domain[2,12]. In the following section various applications of digital image watermarking in industry are discussed.

Image Watermarking Applications Media RequirementsThere are requirements for watermarking system for diff erent media types[10]. a) Image watermarking; b) Document watermarking; c) Graphics watermarking; d) Audio watermarking; and e) Video watermarking. In the following section example applications where digital image watermarking well fi ts to provide security protection.

Image copyright communication for right management and protectionProviding copyright to digital images by hiding rightful information is main aim of digital image watermarking. Microsoft is one of the many content owners to embed digital watermarks in images as a means to communicate and protect image copyrights[10]. This ensures that image users or licensees are acting in compliance with guidelines and allows legal departments to eff ectively communicate and enforce image copyrights.

Image watermarking applications in health careTelemedicine combines Medical Information System with Information Technology that includes use of computers to receive, store, and distribute medical information over long distances. Telemedicine can be divided into number of medical-related technologies using computers for health care like teleradiology, telepathy, telecare, telesurgery, teleneurology etc.[8]

In number of medical applications, medical images require special safety and confi dentiality, because critical judgment is done on the information provided by medical images. Critically ill or injured patients can be treated locally by eff ective and secured communication between

Baisa L Gunjal* and Dr. Suresh N Mali*** Assistant professor, Amrutvahini College of Engineering Sangamner, A’nagar, MS** Principal, Singhgad Institute of Technology and Science, Narhe, Pune, India

Applications of Digital Image Watermarking in Industries

Technical Trends


remote hospitals and distant specialists. Exchange of medical images between hospitals located in diff erent geographical locations is a common practice nowadays as shown in Fig. 5. Hence, healthcare industry demands secure, robust, and more information-hiding techniques promising strict secured authentication and communication through Internet or mobile phones. Conventional watermarking systems embed the hidden information in the entire image. This is not acceptable for sensitive imagery like medical images.

MobilePhones

MedicalImage

HospitalLogo orPatientsRecord

PHYSICIAN

ThroughInternet

DiagnosisBasedImage

Fig. 5: Need for security in telemedicine

A medical image contains Region of Interest (ROI) and Non Region of Interest (RONI). ROI is sensitive region of medical image using which doctors do exact diagnosis and decide treatment accordingly[8].

Fig. 6: Selecti ng ROI for image under diagnosis: selecti ng ROI directly and selecti ng using tool

Use of classical watermarking techniques may create the distortion in ROI and consequently the diagnosis value of image may be lost. Hence, only RONI should be used for watermark embedding. The ROI of image can be selected interactively from medical image. Excluding such

selected region, the watermark is embedded. Fig. 6 shows separation of ROI in Matlab from given image under diagnosis. The physician can use diff erent options to select ROI interactively. Fig. 7 shows some of the options including: rectangular, ellipse-shaped, polygon with n number of vertices, or selection with free hand. Thus, ROI and RONI of image needs to be separated before watermark embedding. The watermark is embedded with pixels of RONI and watermarked image is constructed.

Fig. 7: Selecti ng ROI for medical image

Criminal photograph authentication and transmissionMost of the crime investigations are based on database submitted to crime branches from remote locations via Internet or mobile phones. When some unwanted crime happens, the criminal(s) photograph is constructed according to preliminary information collected from eyewitnesses where actual incident happens. This sensitive criminal image data needs to be transmitted across network through the Internet or mobile phone. Transmission of such image data demands high and guaranteed security.

Secured e-voting systems required for elections With rapid growth of computer network, Internet has reached to common villagers of country and worldwide as well. Due to widespread use of the Internet with information and communication technologies in order to get their inevitable benefi ts like accuracy, speed, cost saving etc. more secure transactions such as shopping, banking, submitting

tax returns are done online. Obviously, electronic voting is a possible alternative for conducting elections by maintaining security in election process[6,9]. Several institutions and companies have proposed Internet as a medium for remote electronic voting, either as an alternative or replacement for traditional poll and paper ballot systems[9]. Though recently electronic voting machines (EVMs) has replaced traditional ballot papers and boxes of conventional voting system, fraud voting and other illegal practices on polling booth like violence, voting by poll workers for absent voters etc. are challenges for election commissions of a given country. The electronic election allows voters to vote over the Internet without geographical restrictions. The mobility, democracy, and privacy are important criteria in evaluating electronic voting schemes[12]. The system should be capable of handling electronic ballots with multiple scopes at the same time, e.g. presidential, municipal, parliamentary, amongst others[4]. It has been always a challenging task for the election commission to conduct free and fair polls in any country. Crores of rupees or dollars are spent by democratic countries for the secure and smooth conduct of the election process. Current research focuses on designing and building ‘voting protocols’ that can support the voting process, while implementing the security mechanisms required for preventing fraud and protecting voters’ privacy[2].

Digital copyright protection system based on mobile agentMobile agent technology and digital watermark technology compensate each other and play a very important role in the industrial applications. The integration of the mobile agent technology and watermark technology has been intensively investigated in recent years. The detail architecture can be found in Quan and Hong (2008)[11].

Remote educationDistance education is gaining popularity in rural areas of developing countries due to the shortage of teachers. In order to support a variety of curriculum for diff erent states in a diverse country like India along with various languages, there is a need for intelligent technologies to create a


deployable remote education solution. The main challenge in the distance education solution is the dissemination of content and teacher-student interaction[3]. The secured transmission of image data is part of distant learning. Image watermarking is solution for providing security in this regard.

Health and car insurance companiesHealth and car insurance companies nowadays use image processing[3]. Health insurance companies usually store the scanned copies of the medical images of their clients. The database may require processing and transmitting to central administrative offi ces. The car companies’ image databases are referred for insurance-related decision making in case of damage to vehicles during accidents. The digital image watermarking protection is provided to such image database.

ConclusionThus, digital image watermarking has many applications in industry ranging from copyright protection, telemedi-cine, criminal photograph authentication, worldwide voting systems, copyright protection system based on mobile agent, remote education, and health and car insurance. In summary, digital image watermarking can be used in any area where there is need to protect image data.

AcknowledgmentsThis work is funded by the Board of Colleges and University Development (BCUD), University of Pune with File

Ref. No.-BCUD /OSD/390, dated 25/10/2010. We are thankful to BCUD, Pune for providing this research grant. We are also thankful to Amrutvahini College of Engineering, Sangamner, A’nagar and Singhgad Institute of Technology and Science, Narhe, Pune for technical support during this work.

References[1] Abu-Errub, A, and Al-Haj, A, (2008).

“Optimi-zed DWT-based image watermarking”. First International Conference on Applications of Digital Information and Web Technologies, IEEE, 4-6.

[2] Burrus, C S, et al. (1998). Introduction to Wavelets and Wavelet Transformation, Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0-13-489600-9.

[3] Chattopadhyay, T, et al. (2012). “Applications of Image Processing in Industries”. Computer Society of India Communications (CSIC), 36(4), 8-11.

[4] Chun-Ta Li, et al. (2009). “A Verifi able Electronic Voting Scheme over the Internet”. Sixth IEEE International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, ITNG '09, 449-454.

[5] Kasmani, S A and Naghsh-Nilchi, A (2008). "A New Robust Digital Image Watermarking Technique Based On Joint DWT-DCT Transformation”. Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology, 2008, 2, 539-544.

[6] Khasawneh, M, et al. (2008). “A biometric-secure e-voting system for election processes”.

5th IEEE International Symposium on Mechatronics and Its Applications, ISMA, 1-8.

[7] Kougianos, E, et al. (2008). “Hardware Assisted Watermarking for Multimedia”. Elsevier Journal on Computer and Electrical, 35(7), 339-358.

[8] Kundu, M K and Das, S (2010). “Lossless ROI Medical Image Watermarking Technique with Enhanced Security and High Payload Embedding”. International conference on Pattern Recognition, 1457-1460.

[9] Menon, T, et al. (2009). “ID Based Signature Schemes for Electronic Voting”. Second IEEE International Conference on Computer and Electrical Engineering, ICCEE '09, 403-406.

[10] Podilchuk, C I and Delp, E J (2001). “Digital Watermarking algorithms and applications”. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 33-46.

[11] Quan, L and Hong, L (2008). “A new architecture for digital copyright protection system based on mobile agent”. 3rd IEEE Conference Industrial Electronics and Applications, 1976–1979.

[12] Soman, K P and Ramchandran, K I (2008). Insight into Wavelets: From Theory to Practice, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall of India.

[13] Sun, G and Yu, Y (2007). “DWT Based Watermarking Algorithm of Color Images”. Second IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Application,1823-1826. n

Baisa L Gunjal has completed M.Tech in I.T. and presently working as assistant Professor in Amrutvahini College of Engineering Sangamner, A’nagar, MS. She has 14 years teaching experience and she is coordinator of seven postgraduate courses running in her college. She is also working on research project funded by BCUD, University of Pune and having more than 15 International publications including IEEE Explorer, IET-UK libraries etc. She is also CSI Student branch coordinator at AVCOE Sangamner and CSI Member.

Dr. Suresh N Mali is Principal, Singhgad Institute of Technology and Science, Narhe, Pune, India. He has written 3 technical books and published 25 papers in various national and international journals and various conferences. He is Member of expert Committee of AICTE, New Delhi to visit at various newly opened institutes of western region on behalf of AICTE, BOS member for Computer Engineering at University of Pune, MS, India and worked as Member of Local Inquiry Committee on behalf of University of Pune. His research interests are information security, data hiding, signal processing, digital multimedia communications and Steganography.

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Abstract: This article discusses a conspectus of soft data mining and its challenges in bio-informatics. In addition, we are redefi ning the boundary of soft computing (boundary means components exclusively contributing to soft computing for handling a wider domain of problems) and in the sequel redefi ning the term soft data mining.

Keywords: Soft set, Soft Computing, Data Mining, Bioinformatics

IntroductionLast few decades witnessed the individual and combined eff orts of data mining and soft computing in the realm of bioinformatics[10]. Data mining[5] can be regarded as an algorithmic process that takes sample as an input and yield patterns such as classifi cation rules, association rules, or clustering as an output. The diff erent soft computing methodologies are highlighted along with a newly introduced paradigm such as soft set theory[11]. The defi nition of soft computing is redefi ned by including the paradigm of soft set theory. Individually or in integrated mode, soft computing tools are turning out to be an effi cient and robust candidate for performing data mining tasks. Soft data mining used in bioinformatics related tasks like protein structure prediction and analysis of DNA, gene sequence analysis, gene mapping, ribonucleic acid and protein, molecular docking with ligand design etc. are highlighted along with their basic features.

The basic material of this article is divided into three subsections. The fi rst subsection discusses the idea of soft computing. The underlying idea of data mining and bioinformatics are discussed in the following subsections, respectively.

Soft computingSoft computing[19] is a consortium of methodologies (e.g. fuzzy logic, neural networks, and evolutionary algorithms) that works together and provides, in one form or another, fl exible information processing capabilities for handling real-life problems. With an aim to exploit the tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty, approximate reasoning, and partial truth, soft computing achieves tractability, robustness, low-cost solution, and close similitude with human-like decision-making.

Normally, fuzzy set theory is appropriate for handling the issues related to understandability of patterns in an incomplete/noisy data. Artifi cial neural networks are nonparametric, adaptive by learning, robust, and exhibit good generalization capabilities in data-rich environments. The exploitation and exploration capabilities of evolutionary algorithms attract researchers to use them for potentially huge search spaces and navigating them, looking for optimal combinations of things. Let us discuss two more paradigms which are enforcing us to redefi ne the boundary of soft computing.

Rough set theory was developed by Zdzislaw Pawlak[15] and used for classifi catory analysis of data tables. An important use of rough set theory in data mining has been in generating rules for classifi cation. These rules maps to diff erent important regions of the feature space which ultimately represent clusters[6]. In last decade, rough set theory has been considered as a component of soft computing which in various synergistic combinations with fuzzy system, neural networks, and evolutionary algorithms, provides a robust framework to achieve tractability, robustness, low-cost solution, and closely resembles with human-like decision making[14]. For

example, synergistic integration of neural network and rough set helps in extracting rudimentary domain knowledge in the form of rules for describing diff erent concepts/classes, and then encoding them as parameter of neural network; thereby constituting the initial knowledge-base network for effi cient learning. Fig. 1 illustrates the constituents of soft computing developed over the years.

Soft set theory[11] introduced by Molodtsov in 1999, is a new method for dealing with uncertain data. The advantage of soft set theory is that it is free from the inadequacy of the parameterization tools, unlike in the theories of fuzzy set[19], probability, and interval mathematics[18].

A general mathematical tool - soft set theory off er solutions for dealing with uncertain, fuzzy, not clearly defi ned objects[8]. In soft set theory, membership is decided by adequate parameters, rough set theory employs equivalence classes, whereas fuzzy set theory depends upon grade of membership. Although three theories are quite distinct yet deal with vagueness. Joint application of these theories may result in a fruitful way[2,7]. With this discussion, we argue that soft set theory may be treated as another constituent of soft computing. Fig. 1 demonstrates its stand in soft computing paradigm.

Satya Ranjan Dash* and Satchidananda Dehuri*** School of Computer Application, KIIT University, Patia, Bhubaneswar-751024.Email: [email protected]** Department of Information and Communication Technology, Fakir Mohan University, Vyasa Vihar, Balasore-756019, Odisha.Email: [email protected]

A Conspectus of Soft Data Mining in Bioinformatics

Fig. 1: Soft computi ng and its basic consti tuents

Soft Computing

Fuzzy theory

Neural network

Evolutionary algorithm

Redefi ned by S K Pal et al.Rough set

Soft setRedefi ned by Dehuri et al.

Technical Trends


Data miningData mining[5] involves the use of semiautomatic data analysis tool by harnessing the best attribute of soft computing methodologies to discover novel, valid, and interesting patterns, along with a relationship in large data sets. Data mining is an iterative process within which progress is defi ned by discovery, through either automatic, semiautomatic, or manual methods. Data mining is useful in an explanatory analysis scenario in which there are no predetermined notions about what will constitute an “interesting” outcome. Data mining is the search for novel, useful, and nontrivial information in large gamut of data.

Prediction and description are considered as two primary goals of data mining. Predictive data mining, which produces the model of the system described by the given data set and descriptive data mining, which produces new, nontrivial information based on the available data set. The goal of prediction and description are achieved through data mining tasks:1. Classifi cation: discovery of a

predictive learning function that classifi es a data item into one of several predefi ned classes.

2. Discovering association rules: it aims to extract interesting correlations, frequent patterns, associations or casual structures among sets of items in the transaction databases or other data repositories and describes association relationship among diff erent attributes.

3. Clustering: a common descriptive task in which one seeks to identify a fi nite set of categories or clusters.

Data mining has its origin in various disciplines, like statistics, soft computing[10], multiobjective optimization[3], database management system, pattern recognition[13], machine learning[9] etc. Statistics has its roots in mathematics, and therefore that something is sensible on theoretical grounds before testing it in practice. Data mining from pattern recognition point of view along with a relevance of soft computing is a topic of interest in many researchers in last two decades. In data mining the aforesaid tasks like classifi cation, association rule mining, and clustering may be treated as multiobjective

problems rather than a uniobjective, therefore a new paradigm was started by Ghosh et al.[3] i.e., multiobjective optimization for knowledge discovery. Machine learning has willingness to test something out to see how it performs[16].

BioinformaticsBioinformatics[1] is the science of storing, extracting, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting biological data. Its importance has increased with the technology of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing, microarrays, as well as the widespread understanding that genes and proteins interactions. This in turn renders high performance data analysis algorithms central to various bioinformatic tasks.

There are a lot of patterns in biology which are not understood and data mining helps to discover novel and hopefully useful information. Data mining is used in the prediction of gene relations in a genome, gene expression analysis, protein-ligand docking, and the prediction of protein folding resulting from changes in the DNA[10].

The diverse range of rapidly expanding databases produced by modern molecular biology has ignited a need for more accurate classifi cation and prediction algorithms. The accuracy of classifi cation algorithms can be aff ected by a large variety of factors, some of which may be considered to be generic to any data mining algorithm and applicable to research in other application domains.

Data Mining in BioinformaticsMolecular biology laboratories have gathered a very huge amount of data in sequence and functional genome projects[1]. It is a diffi cult task to analyze these data manually. Therefore, sophisticated semiautomatic computing techniques are necessary to extract new, meaningful, and useful information from these data. Past few years, data mining techniques have been successfully applied in such analysis. A few examples of these applications are analysis of gene expression data, recognition of genes in DNA sequences, and protein structure prediction.

Usually, biological data needs to be preprocessed before they can be used in a data mining algorithm. There are a lot of patterns in biology which are

not understood and data mining helps to discover novel and hopefully useful information. Data mining is used in the prediction of gene relations in a genome, understanding of relations for region activation in the brain, and the prediction of protein folding resulting from changes in the DNA. Sequence analysis is a major area in bioinformatics encompassing the techniques for studying the biological sequences, DNA, RNA, and proteins, on the linear structure level. The focus of this area is generally on the identifi cation of intramolecular similarities, which boils down to detecting repeated segments within a given sequence, while identifying intermolecular similarities amounts to spotting common segments among two or multiple sequences. From a data mining point of view, sequence analysis is nothing but string- or pattern-mining specifi c to biological strings.

Gene sequences isolated from diseased and healthy tissues can be compared to identify critical diff erences between the two classes of genes. Such features can be used for classifying biodata and predicting behaviors. A lot of methods developed for biodata classifi cation[10].

One of the most important search problems in biodata analysis is similarity search and comparison among biosequences and structures. For example, gene sequences isolated from diseased and healthy tissues can be compared to identify critical diff erences between the two classes of genes. This can be done by fi rst retrieving the gene sequences from the two tissue classes, and then fi nding and comparing the frequently occurring patterns of each class. Since biodata usually contains noise or nonperfect matches, it is important to develop eff ective sequential or structural pattern-mining algorithms in the noisy environment, such as that recently reported in Pal (2004)[14].

The amino acid sequence of a protein (primary structure) can be easily determined from the sequence on the gene that codes for it. In most of the cases, this primary structure uniquely determines a structure in its native environment. Knowledge of this structure is vital in understanding the function of the protein. For lack of better terms, structural information is usually classifi ed as secondary, tertiary, and quaternary.


Protein structure prediction is one of the most important for drug design and the design of novel enzymes.

Recently, many studies have focused on the comparison of one gene to another. However, most diseases are not triggered by a single gene but by a combination of genes acting together. Association and correlation analysis methods can be used to help determine the kinds of genes or proteins that are likely to co-occur in target samples. Such analysis would facilitate the discovery of groups of genes or proteins and the study of interactions and relationships among them.

Data Mining approaches seem ideally suited for bioinformatics, since it is data-rich, but lacks a comprehensive theory of life’s organization at the molecular level. The extensive databases of biological information create both challenges and opportunities for the development of novel knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) methods. Mining biological data helps to extract useful knowledge from massive datasets gathered in biology.

Soft Data Mining in BioinformaticsRecall that data mining is one of the core stages of KDD which is responsible for mining valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately understandable patterns in data. Therefore as it stands now, data mining can be viewed as applying soft computing techniques in the context of voluminous, possibly heterogeneous data sets. Hence data mining with synergistic integration of soft computing can be regarded as “soft data mining”. Its application in biological dataset is really worthy to uncover interesting and novel knowledge. Hence, soft data mining in bioinformatics recently is being treated as a hot and challenging area of research. In this article, we are not only introducing soft data mining in bioinformatics but also giving pointers for other likelihood groups to carry out more and more research. Fig. 2 is illustrates the constituents and overall activities needed to carry out under the umbrella of soft data mining in bioinformatics.

Without deviating from the focus of this article, let us discuss the newly introduced component of soft computing, which in turn with the synergistic integration of other constituents of soft computing and data mining can be very helpful for solving the bioinformatics problem.

Soft set theory[11], proposed by Molodtsov, is a new general method for

dealing with uncertain data. Soft sets are called (binary, basic, elementary) neighborhood systems. As for standard soft set, it may be redefi ned as the classifi cation of objects in two distinct classes, thus it is confi rming that soft set can deal with a Boolean-valued information system. The advantages of soft set theory are that it is free from the inadequacy of the parameterization tools, unlike in the theories of fuzzy set[19], probability, and interval mathematics. Recently, research on soft set theory has been active, and great progress has been achieved, including the works of using fundamental soft set theory, soft set theory in abstract algebra, and soft set theory for data analysis, particularly in decision making[20].

In soft set theory membership is decided by adequate parameters, rough set theory employs equivalence classes, whereas fuzzy set theory depends upon grade of membership. Although three

theories are quite distinct yet they all deal with vagueness. Hence, their combined application may result in a fruitful way. The relationship between fuzzy set theory and rough set theory has been established in Gorzalzany (1987)[4]. While all these theories are well-known and often useful approaches to describing uncertainty, each of these theories has its inherent diffi culties as pointed out by Molodtsov[12].

We can put the soft set approach of the Association Rule Mining[17] and other mining techniques along with soft computing approaches to achieve faster time to capture the rules. With this approach, we believe that some applications using soft set theory for mining various levels of association rules and decision support systems from biological database will be easier.

Soft computing methodologies (involving fuzzy sets, neural networks, genetic algorithms, rough set, and soft sets) can be widely used in the data

Fig. 2: Soft data mining in bioinformati cs

Soft Data Mining Bioinformation

Bioinformatics(Biological data)

Gene expression data analysis

Protein predictionstructure

Protein liganddocking

Prediction of RNA/DNA structure

Fuzzy theory

Evolutionary algorithm

Neural network

Rough set

Soft set

Soft data mining

Data miningSoft computing

Continued on Page 17


Medical Tourism - a Business & Technology PerspectiveHistory & ConceptSeveral thousands of years ago, pilgrims and patients from all over Mediterranean used to gather at Epidaurus, in ancient Greece, to collect blessings for good health from Asklepios, the Healing God. In Roman Britain, ailing people used to take waters in a shrine bath for good health, which they continued till 2000 years. Wealthy Europeans in the 18th century used to travel to Nile from Germany for Spa. These are all forms of Medical Tourism and these all have prevailed from the ages when people used to believe that ill-health is the consequence and verdict of god for sinful acts in life.

So, traveling in foreign countries for medical care can be termed as “Medical Tourism” in short. Experts also believe that there must be some positive swing in economic growth for countries which are facilitating medical tourism. In 1980s and 1990s health care costs rose high in several countries like USA and patients started haunting cheaper destinations at off shore for cost-eff ective medical treatment. A new term surfaced “tooth-tourism” that led Americans traveling to Central American countries like Costa Rica for dental care, for which they won’t get any insurance coverage in their homeland. Slowly countries like Cuba, Mexico, Thailand, and India also emerged with their fabulous off ers to make the Medical Tourism industry as an enormous sector. A statistics says Cuban government had welcomed 2000 medical tourists in as early as 1990. Bumrangrad International Hospital in Bangkok is probably the best known place for medical tourists to boast patients from over 190 countries. Joint Commission International, a non-profi t organization that certifi es the safety and record of hospitals, has accredited some 200 foreign medical facilities, mainly in Spain, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Indian landscape for Medical Tourism is also quite green and this is poised to be the next success story for India after Information Technology segment. Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) foresees a growth

in Medical Tourism to touch Rs. 10, 800 crore by 2015.

Present ScenarioEarlier only wealthy patients in developing countries used to travel to developed countries for high-quality medical care, while now the exodus happens in reverse direction. A growing number of less affl uent patients from developed countries are traveling to regions once characterized as “third world”. Some of the latest statistics states that an estimated 5,00,000 Americans went abroad for treatment, out of which majority traveled to Mexico and other Latin American countries. Rest all chose Singapore, India, and Thailand. In the year 2006, medical tourism industry was about $60 billion USD worldwide, while McKinsey and Company estimates the growth to touch $100 billion USD by end of 2012.

Lifecycle of Medical TourismThe very fi rst step for medical tourism starts when a patient seeking medical treatment overseas either contacts a medical tourism operator or directly contacts any hospital’s international liaison offi ce for admission. Many international level hospitals have their specially trained staff s to entertain foreign patients. The patients provide their current medical reports, either to a consultant at medical tourism company or a doctor from the hospital, who later on provides feedback on their medical condition, recommended treatment, and cost and duration of the treatment. Then either the medical operator or the hospital's international patient department provides information about whether a visa is necessary and instructions on procuring a visa. Sometimes this requires an invitation

Radha M De* and Diptiman Dasgupta***IBM Advisory Accredited IT Specialist**Lead Architect - Travel & Transportation, IBM Global Delivery

Start

Contact a DoctorIn Medical

Tourist Spot

ProblemResolved

Contact a Doctorin Medical

Tourist Spot

Terminate

ExchangeMedical

Information(EMR)

Reach a MedicalTourist Agent

Patient hasbeen diagnosed

a disease

Patient reacheslocal doctor for

treatment

Treatment takestime & Money

Make Appointmentwith Doctor

CompleteTreatment with

Local Doctor

Travel Medical Tourist Spot for

Treatment

Have aProblem/Query

Travel BackHome & Follow

Up

CompleteTreatment &

Take Vacation

Consult foreign DoctorRemotely

N

N

Y

Fig. 1: Medical tourism - business process

Technical Trends


letter from the hospital, depending on the country. The patient then travels to the hospital to undertake the procedure, usually coordinated by an on-the-ground case executive assigned to the patient. Often the patient will tour the country before or after the procedure is completed.

Medical Tourism - Business Opportunities and EcosystemMedical tourism can provide great business opportunities by collaborative eff ort of multiple service providers to the tourists. While hospitals and treatment can be primary purpose for the patients, specialized medical tour operators can provide all required services and can become one stop service providers to these medical tourists. They can provide information about hospitals, book the same for patients, arrange or support visa processing, provide additional support on tourism after treatment, and also help to contact necessary insurance companies in need. So following are few key entities which can collaborate eff ectively to provide all necessary services to the medical tourists.

Medical tour operators: Medical tour operators can play a very important role who can be one stop service providers to the customers. They should have an integrated set of applications linked with hospitals, insurance providers, doctors

and pharmacies or blood banks. So through this application, tour operators can book a hospital for the medical tourist, they can search the best doctors in related areas, get ranking from socially connected people, they can fi x an appointment based on availability and also book hotels and fi x travel itineraries for the medical tourists. During treatment these applications should provide facilities to collaborate with pharmacies in need of rare medicine. They should also be able to talk to insurance providers for supporting patients in that area.

Community of doctors: There should be a community of doctors on related specialization areas. Today, if we visit the website of any hospital then we see only the specializations and set of doctors who are associated with that hospital but need of the day is really a set of specialized doctors connected over social networking platform through specialized group formation and who can collaborate on demand in need of a specifi c discussion or decision. So this kind of advanced medical tourism applications should provide that facility of collaboration with specialized doctors regarding appointment & discussion. There should also be facilities for discussion among the patients and doctors on need, should have options to provide feedback by patients, and discuss with other similar patients.

Specialized hospitals: Ideally there should be a set of hospitals connected with this application and provide necessary services. These hospitals can register for these offerings to these providers. Today if we visit travel operators sites it gives us lowest cost airfares but this similar facilities can be enhanced with hospitals too. Medical tour operators or medical tourists can provide their requirement and can search for best possible hospitals with lowest per day expenditure and tourists can book the same.

Medical insurance & travel insurance providers: Insurance providers can also register for their off ers. Like hospital search patients can go for best insurance providers that match their requirement and buy the same instantly.

Hotels: Hotels can also play a great role in this ecosystem. They can also register with their off ers & promotions and like hospital search, tour operators & tourists can search for best possible deals.

Pharmacies & blood banks: Pharmacies & blood banks can also play a great role in this ecosystem by providing necessary life-saving drugs or rare group blood. Today we need to visit all the stores individually to search for life-saving drugs. It also takes ample time to visit multiple blood banks in search for rare group blood. But if these pharmacies & blood banks also join in the ecosystem then these applications will have the real value.

Role of Information Technology in Medical TourismTechnology reached big time in medical tourism and evolving rapidly to provide the best of breed facilities for medical practitioners across the world. Web 2.0, Cloud Computing, Mobile Technology etc. are making its way deep into the world of medical research. Geographical barriers are going to blur when an Australian doctor takes lesson on some typical surgeries from his American friend using web 2.0-based video conferences. 24X7 medical facilities are now available on toll-free telephone lines, Internet connections, while international credit cards, instant banking facilities, easy loan sanction, web-based payment gateways, health

Medical Tour OperatorsOne stop service

providersCommunity of Doctors

SociallyConnected

SpecializedHospital

SpecializedTreatments

Medical Insurance Companies

Medical InsuranceSupport

Medical Tourists

Travel InsuranceTravel Coverage

Pharmacies &Blood Banks

Medicine support

HotelsFriendly &

economic StayMedical Tourism Ecosystem

Fig. 2: Medical tourism - ecosystem


insurance made medical tourists’ life much easier.

So if look at these aspects, three broad technology areas can work hand-in-hand in building an eff ective medical tourism solution. One is surely cloud because medical information details like EMR can be made available across worldwide for each patient through low-cost solutions in cloud. There can be cloud-based off erings which can host medical records of the patients with minimum fees annually and all medical tourism solution providers and doctors can access the same records with the access information. Whenever there is any test in any part of the world these medical reports can be updated. We also see scope of some analytics to analyze records of patients’ test reports.

Now social collaboration & networking will also play a major role. Doctors, patients, tour operators, and hospitals all these key entities in this ecosystem should be well-connected through social networking. Doctors can take suggestions from other doctors, while patients should be able to fi nd other patients and know their feedback on similar areas. So all these kind of collaboration is possible through social networking.

Regarding mobility it is crucial to provide services on the move. A patient is a dynamic element in this journey and he should be able to access any information any time through mobile devices, they should be able to reserve a hotel or fi x an appointment with a doctor or book a hospital bed with their smart phones. Now let us discuss EMR and two broad areas of technology applications like Cloud & Mobility around health tourism.

What is electronic medical records (EMR)Changing ways for disseminating information using Information Technology has propelled the medical world for a slow transition from paper-based medical records maintenance to Electronic Medical Records (EMR) management. EMR contains things like Clinical Notes, Medical Administration Record, Result Review, Discharge Summary etc. Health Information Technology (HIT) suggests EMR implementation and networking would save around $81 billion USD per annum.

Some of the major benefi ts of EMR can include following:

1. Replace paper-based medical records, which are incomplete mostly, hard to read and hard to fi nd, with a robust set of information that brings advantage of easy retrieval, available anytime and anywhere.

2. Easy for automating, structuring, and streamlining clinical workfl ow

3. Providing integrated support for wide varieties of caring activities like decision support, monitoring, electronic prescribing, laboratory ordering etc.

4. Maintain data set and data trail needed for medical audit and quality assurance, epidemiological monitoring, disease surveillance etc.

5. Support for continuing medical learning

6. Analytics & trend analysis of medical reports

EMR along with other information technology support can make the world smaller for patients seeking consultancy from foreign doctors. But the success of this depends totally on the implementation of EMR and other facilities in all hospitals and healthcare facilities. On top of that, EMR can alleviate medication errors and need for repeated diagnosis and testing to harness the power of healthcare systems.

Still the healthcare industry is one of the lowest adopter of Information Technology, where one out of four physicians use some type of EMR and lesser than one in ten uses it comprehensively. So, it’s defi nitely a matter of massive investment to convert healthcare industry to a paperless one.

EMR on CloudCloud computing has rocked the world in recent times, which allows users to pay monthly subscription cost to access their system hosted in cloud. This removes the need for managing expensive infrastructure of its own to carry the hosting cost of running system. Software as a Service (SaaS) is a product, which some of the big companies are facilitating across the world to their clients for about a decade. There are quite a number of cloud-based EMR:

• No upfront software license purchase cost

• No hardware purchase to maintain• Better overall support, including

disaster recovery

• Strong security and data protection mechanisms, compliance to HIPPA regulations

• Accessibility of physicians on the move across the world

On other hand, there are some potential downsides to cloud based EMR:

• Latency or lag times• Lack of robust and reliable Internet

facility in rural areas• Bandwidth limitations• Constrained back-up and data

accessibility

But still private cloud-based EMR solutions do provide fl exibility and scalability.

Role of SmartPhoneSmartphones and Cloud jointly can redefi ne the healthcare infrastructure. This will show how EMR management is becoming easier since EMR turns like a credit card. How Cloud can uphold the power of content management for millions of patients to help the access of same anywhere, anytime, and to facilitate physicians to take care of their patients. Medical Tourism gets a huge boost by adopting the EMR for international patients. We will also discuss some architecture of innovative EMR solutions in smartphones.

Cloud is adding its power with smartphone to enhance the power of computing and remove the bottleneck of latency. Now EMR accessible from smartphone would be a new era buzz. So, if a cloud is imagined with a federation of EMR, which is accessible from Cloud Phones, then it would be a revolution in medical healthcare industry.

Data Mining and EMRData mining puts a deeper impression in healthcare sector. Continuous eff ort on collecting data from diff erent sources like medical journals, live case studies etc. can help create a huge repository of disease-diagnosis system. When EMR is being supplied as raw data to identify the problem or disease of the person EMR belong and at the same time there should be a system to personalize the need for medical tourism by advising the possible medical tourist spots for cost eff ective and budget treatment of the detected disease.

People can carry their own medical records on their smartphone, which will


remain encrypted for security and requires a password to access. The application generates a one-time password that has to match with a server to unlock the app. Low-bandwidth data remains in the phone itself, like immunization, allergy records etc. While more data intensive information, e.g. X-Ray, CT-Scan are stored in server for on-demand access.

Further Innovation & Way AheadNow Information Technology can provide a great contribution here. Intelligent decision making systems have already been deployed in various eff orts to drill down raw Electronic Health Records (EHR) to fi nd pattern for individual patient or some sample population to help detect disease or any potential threat of diseases. DataMining systems can come in place to create a global repository in Medical Cloud-based infrastructure to serve it as Business Process as a Service (BPaaS)

to medical world and individuals. This in turn would help Medical Tourism Industry inside a country or globally by advising patients to take best possible and cost-eff ective treatment of aff ected disease anywhere in the world.

An integrated system can come in place to glue the thread between globally accredited hospitals, clinics, medical research universities to share knowledge for the wellbeing of mankind. Various tourism organizations and insurance companies can join into this federation of human welfare to complete the circle of helping people by making them as part of this association. While Medical Cloud will assist in detecting disease and will suggest the best spot with budget-based treatment in any country and globally, at the same time social networks & communities can always provide instant consultancies and suggestions. Pharmacies can also join in it to complete the circle, by making a voluntary contribution of

delivering any medicine needed to save a life at anytime and anywhere in the world. Global helplines will also remain available in multilingual format to help people across the world for any immediate crisis management across the globe.

BibliographyDefi nition & Concept of Medical tourism[1] http://www.surgeonabroad.com/

i n f o r m a t i o n / h e a l t h - t o u r i s m -defi nition/

[2] http://wiki .answers.com/Q/Is_Health_tourism_a_boon_or_a_curse Growth in Medical tourism

[3] http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1861919,00.html Technology & Concept

[4] h t t p : // w w w . d r p r e m . c o m /technology-in-medical-tourism/ Web based EMR

[5] http ://www.ar t ic lesbase.com/software-articles/web-based-cloud-emr-a-new-dimension-added-to-medical-science-5862325.html

EMR on Cloud [6] h t t p : // w w w . k e v i n m d . c o m /

blog /2011/05/pros-cons-cloud-based-web-based-emr-systems.html

[7] http://www.emrandhipaa.com/n ews /2 0 1 2 /0 1 / 1 8 /c a re c l o u d -enters-electronic-health-record-market-unveils-complete-onc-atcb-meaningful-use-certifi cation/

Data Mining on EMR [8] http://medcitynews.com/2012/06/

emr-data-mining-combats-disease-spread/

[9] http://www.analytics-magazine.org /januaryfebruary-2012/507-intelligent-decision-support-in-healthcare n

Radha M De is IBM Advisory Accredited IT Specialist and is currently working as Technical Lead in projects under shipping industry. He has around 13 years of experience in IT industry and dealt with design, implementation in several critical applications, including smart phone applications. He has published one mobile solution framework in IP.com in recent time. He has publishing in IBM Academy of Technology.

Diptiman Dasgupta is the Lead Architect for Travel & Transportation Industry in IBM Global Delivery and is a member of IBM Academy of Technology (AoT). He is an IBM Certifi ed Senior IT Architect and Open Group Master Certifi ed IT Architect in the area of Enterprise Integration (EI). He has 15+ years of experience in design and development, architecting, providing technical strategy, solutions for creating and leveraging assets in client solution, as well as providing technical leadership to the organization.

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Fig. 3: Medical rule engine manifests detected disease informati on & suggested medical tourist desti nati on


IntroductionThe rise of social media has been phenomenal, mainly fueled by Facebook though there are others in the game as well. From a small start in the Harvard campus in 2003, Facebook became a very popular social networking site with 900 million worldwide subscribers. Facebook has 169 million US users, 51 million in India, and 45 million in Brazil[5]. Many companies have taken to Facebook for developing their own pages. One fi nds on Facebook an array of fi rms in a variety of businesses such as Coca-Cola, Ford Motors, Sears, General Motors, Airbus, and Sony. Not to be left behind are computer fi rms such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer; telecom companies such as At&T, Verizon, Singtel; and even the rivals/competitors/partners such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, LinkedIn; and Google. Individuals follow suit with their fan following.

Twitter has been a popular vehicle for politicians, social workers, singers, actors who love to be in the forefront with their tweets. Twitter is a real-time information network that allows 140 character tweets to be sent out. It hits 400 million tweets per day (June 2012) with 170 million registered users. Priyanka Chopra, Sachin Tendulkar, and Shashi Tharoor are some of the leading Indian tweeters with followers exceeding a million each. LinkedIn focuses on creating networks of professionals and has reached 160 million subscribers by June 2012. The numbers of Facebook and LinkedIn users enthuse marketers who see a huge advertising opportunity on these platforms. Google attempted to build its own social network platform Google+ though comparatively smaller numbers so far, 400 thousand as in June 2012.

Spread of Social Media and the Spend on AdvertisementsThe spread of social media and the interest of users has been interesting. It is visible in the statistics of followers of celebrities on two social media networks

viz. Twitter and Facebook, Facebook off ers an opportunity to create pages on its own site with a chance to gather a ‘fan’ base in Facebook terminology while Twitter assists in building followers, some examples in Table 1:

Twitter followers

Facebook fans

Shakira 17 51

Barack Obama 17 27

Charlie Sheen 7 2

Britney Spears 18 19

Winfrey Oprah 12 7All numbers in millions - as of June 30, 2012

Table 1: Twitt er and Facebook following

It is also important to realize that while the organizations create pages on Facebook and have fans they do not appear to be posting much. On the other hand, activities on twitter seem to be higher for celebrities, probably because of increasing spread of twitter on mobiles.

SEOmoz lists top three social media sites as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, in that order[11] measured by popularity and eff ectiveness for marketing. Marketers have been putting their bets on social media to further their brand image. In terms of dollar spend social media ad spend is expected to be $4.7 billion in 2012 rising to $8.3 billion in 2015 according to BIA/Kelsey report[6].

Advertising on Facebook Companies create their pages on Facebook for various intermediate objectives, though the ultimate goal may be increasing sales. Such intermediate objectives may be co-creating products, enhancing brand image, getting feedback etc. With 45 million Indians on Facebook, TripAdvisor thinks there are new opportunities. Social media has changed the way one should look at customers and allows companies to focus

on them. Creating an app on Facebook helps to analyze and understand what people like[3]. TripAdvisor on Facebook is an example of Online Travel Agency (OTA) that provides personalized planning. According to Ibibo CEO “Social media ads give us the advantage of context-based socially relevant advertising”[5].

Firm comScore researched the eff ect of Facebook pages on marketing. It suggests that marketing on the world's most populous online social network can help increase sales[7]. The report indicates that fans or friends of fans are likely to buy more than the general visitors to the sites.

comScore study fi ndings[9]:1. Amazon.com Inc saw that their

Facebook page fans spent twice on their ecommerce site than an average Internet user. However, the friends spent only 8% more.

2. On the other hand, the Starbucks fans on their Facebook page and their friends spent 38% more at Starbucks than those who were not exposed to Facebook messaging.

3. comScore report concluded that being a fan of a brand on Facebook causes people to purchase that brand more frequently.

A scan of Facebook pages reveals an interesting aspect. 'Gap' has its own page on Facebook with 2.5 million fans (June 2012). In addition one may fi nd a Gap ad displayed on other company page such as 'Coca-Cola' page, almost nested advertising. Gap ad displayed on ‘Coca-Cola’ page enables ‘Gap’ to reach some more of the 42 million Coca-Cola fans. Further, the cover page of a company may display banner ads of various companies like Coti, Honda, Cursormania and so on. Such ads carry a footnote "ads not by Facebook", explanation of which is found on Facebook under ‘Adware’.

Facebook off ers to show ads at a price charged based on clicks or impressions. An advertiser may want to pay for CPM

Article Dr. Anil VaidyaAdjunct ProfessorS. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research

Social Media - Marketers’ New Playing FieldThe previous article ‘Digital world beckons marketers’ visited the advertising opportunities in the new digital media. Of the “Digital World options” the social media have evoked great interest in the recent past. This article focuses on social media platforms. It provides learning from real life experiences of running campaigns on two popular platforms and brings out the possible ways to reach customers.


(per thousand impressions) or by CPC (cost per click), i.e. advertiser may pay for number of times ad has been shown or on number of times a viewer has clicked on the ad. Following are the two of the major ways advertising is done on Facebook:1. Ads - Ads are paid advertisements by

business to be shown to the visitors. The ads may ask them to take certain action like clicking or accessing a particular page.

2. Sponsored stories - Sponsored stories are posts from friends or pages that the advertisers sponsor to be shown to reinforce the positive messages by paying for them.

Some Learning from Advertising on Social Media It is important to know the diff erences among various social media platforms in terms of eff ectiveness, reach etc. To shed light on specifi c gains, identical campaigns were launched on Facebook and LinkedIn. As campaigns progressed and the results started coming in, necessary changes were made in both the campaigns. Changes were targeted towards improving the impressions, click-through-rate, and generating leads. Ultimately, the campaigns became platform-specifi c.Here are some of the deeper learnings from the experience:1. Audience behavior - Facebook audience is generally online during off -offi ce hours; LinkedIn audience visits pages during offi ce hours.2. Content - To get noticed, ads on LinkedIn should be professional with business content, on Facebook they need to have social content.3. Keywords - Embedding specifi c keywords in ad copy on LinkedIn gets more attention, e.g. keywords such as expert, international.4. Bid - Bid if kept low gets little attention - it is not displayed giving very low impressions - the display is decided through auction - one who bids higher gets more impressions.5. Targeting - Select specifi c viewers (e.g. by geography, seniority etc.) to meet the campaign goal.6. Campaign goal - The campaign need to have a goal that can be measured by the actions taken by the viewers, e.g. leads generated, clicks on specifi c link etc.7. Choosing geography - Number of active users diff er signifi cantly by geography, e.g. one fi nds higher

impressions in North America than in Asia. Consequently, click-through-rate (CTR) may vary.8. CTR - Overall average click-through-rate on LinkedIn happens to be around 0.025%, an advertiser is happy to get 0.1% for his campaign. 9. Campaign - It is useful to have multiple ads in a single campaign. Regular monitoring and altering parameters as required helps to achieve campaign objectives.10. Cost - Cost of running campaign on Facebook and LinkedIn diff ers considerably. It is important to closely monitor daily spend and alter budget as required.

Various elements of advertising campaign are depicted in Fig. 1. Number of impressions, clicks, and other measures are used to gauge the campaign success in view of goals set. comScore study (2012) on Facebook identifi es importance of time spent by the viewer. The real challenge is in connecting the campaign success to increasing sales of products and services, linking the viewers’ actions.

Mobile NetworksSocial networking on mobile is accelerating in India as the handsets get less expensive and mobile services operators off er better deals like pay-per-day. On LinkedIn, 14 million users (of total 150 million) are from India, 7 million users login via mobile; globally 75-80 million log via mobile[10].

Advertising on social networks on mobiles is the next big opportunity for marketers, though so far estimate of the ad revenue from mobiles is reported to be low of $1.6 billion in 2011. According to a study by WeAreSocial, 40% of users log on the social network via mobile.

There are instances where the restaurants, retail stores, and other businesses attract customers off ering special deals to local residents. There are some who have reported excellent results. Twitter ad on mobile helped P F Chang’s China Bistro and CloudOn exemplify that the mobile Twitter ads produce good results[8]. However, there are others who experienced not so encouraging results. In a way the results of mobile ads are somewhat mixed, some positive others disappointing. It is useful to know the expert opinion that the deep discounts off ered in a low-margin business through daily deals sites may not the best way to do the business[1].

Social Media Performance - Successes and Ad BusinessWall Street Journal reported news on Netfl ix that shows an interesting deployment of Facebook page by Netfl ix. It says Netfl ix shares jumped 13% post an update on Facebook page[2]. The update was on the improving streaming business of the company. CloudOn is a Twitter believer, its ads helped generate 10,000 downloads of its document-software app[8].

ContentsMessage,

punch lineBid

Price, cost

TargetSegments,geography

TimingAd release,

duration

OutcomeCTR,

impressions,reach

Campaign:

Multiple ads,multiple social

sites, cellphones

CampaignGoal:

Brandingco-creation,

feedback andimprovement,

knowprospectivecustomers

Fig.1: Social media - adverti sing Campaign


Social media companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter rarely used to make their revenue from advertising and other revenue streams public, though after going public they are more transparent. Twitter declines to disclose its ad revenue but is estimated to be around $139 million in 2011[8]. On account of its IPO, Facebook declared its fi nancial data. Its ad revenue for 2011 was $3.1 billion almost 90% of total revenue, with $1.21 as average revenue per user in fi rst quarter of 2012. The stock price recorded on June 12, 2012, was $27.40 with market capitalization of $74 billion, though the price bounced back to $32-33 level. The stock debuted at $38 and had opened above $42 on the day of listing on NASDAQ on May 18, 2012. In India, social media advertising spend is Rs. 94 crore of total Rs. 25,600 crore ad market. Much of this Rs. 94 crore went to Facebook. LinkedIn made $522 million in 2011, most of it coming from advertising, and had a stock price around $106 in June 2012.

Concluding Remarks - RoI on Social Media MarketingReturn on investment in marketing on social media may not be always in dollars

but also in the change in consumer behavior tied to particular media application[4]. It is more appropriate to measure the behavior changes as the social media helps people to connect, comment, and create. It spreads the word, creates perceptions, and impacts the brands positively or negatively. Advertising on social media need to be seen as more as connecting to people, it provides another channel to listen to the customers. Advertiser choosing to respond evokes more positive feelings. Masses have taken to social networking and will continue to do so. Marketers have to be on forefront making the most of the opportunity.

References[1] Bertini, M, et al. (2012). Do Social deal

sites really work? Harvard Business Review, May 2012.

[2] Digits (2012). Netfl ix shares surge 13% after CEO boast. The Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2012: B7.

[3] ET Q&A (2012). Social media has transformed online travel planning. The Economic Times, May 3, 2012.

[4] Hoff man, D and Fodor, M (2010). Can you measure the ROI of your

social media marketing? MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1).

[5] Julka, H (2012). India’s one of the key growth markets: FB. The Economic Times, May 17, 2012.

[6] MarketingProfs (2012). Social media ad spend to reach $8.3 billion by 2015 MarketingProfs accessed on June 17, 2012 from http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2011/4977/social-media-ad-spend-to-reach-83-billion-by-2015

[7] Ortutay, B (2012). Facebook posts drive sales traffi c, ComScore study suggests Denverpost.com accessed on June 13, 2012 http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_20843302/facebook-posts-drive-sales-traffic-comscore-study-suggests

[8] Ovide, S (2012). Twitter’s mobile ads begin to click. The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2012: B6.

[9] Raice, S (2012). Facebook combats criticism over ads. The Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2012.

[10] Sachitanand, R (2012). Social media in your pocket. The Economic Times, April 24, 2012.

[11] SEOmoz (2011). Social Media Marketing Guide SEQmoz accessed on June 25, 2012 from http://www.seomoz.org /article/social-media-marketing-tactics n

mining step of the overall KDD process. Hence, analyzing large biological data sets requires making sense of the data by inferring structure or generalizations from the data. Therefore, we see a great potential to increase the interaction among soft computing, data mining, and bioinformatics.

ConclusionsBioinformatics, soft computing, and data mining are developing as an interdisciplinary science. Data mining approaches seem ideally suited for bioinformatics, since bioinformatics is data-rich but lacks a comprehensive theory of life’s organization at the molecular level. However, data mining in bioinformatics is hampered by many problems like intractability, local optimality, vagueness etc. Therefore, the joint application of soft computing and data mining is realized as an important tool for circumventing the aforesaid issues.

References[1] Baldi, P and Brunak, S (2001).

Bioinformatics: The Machine Learning Approach, 2nd Edition, MIT Press.

[2] Dubois, D and Prade, H (1990). “Rough fuzzy sets and fuzzy rough sets”. International Journal of General Systems,

17, 191-208.[3] Ghosh, A, et al. (Eds.) (2008). Multi-

objective Evolutionary Algorithms for Knowledge Discovery from Databases, Springer.

[4] Gorzalzany, M B (1987). “A method of inference in approximate reasoning based on interval-valued fuzzy sets” Fuzzy Sets Syst., 21, 1-17.

[5] Han, J and Kamber, M (2006). Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques, Morgan Kaufmann.

[6] Herawan, T, et al. (2010). “A rough set approach for selecting clustering attribute”. Knowledge-Based Systems, 23(3), 220-231.

[7] Maji, P K, et al.( 2001). “Fuzzy soft sets”, J. Fuzzy Math, 9(3), 589-602.

[8] Maji, P K, et al. (2002). “An application of soft sets in a decision making problem”. Computers and Mathematics with Applications, 44, 1077-1083.

[9] Mitchell, T M (1999). “Machine learning and data mining” Commun. ACM, 42(11).

[10] Mitra, S and Acharya, T (2003). Data Mining: Multimedia, Soft Computing, and Bioinformatics, John Wiley & Sons.

[11] Molodtsov, D (1999). “Soft set theory - fi rst results.” Computers and Mathematics with Applications, 37, 19-31.

[12] Molodtsov, D (2004). The Theory of Soft Sets (in Russian), URSS Publishers, Moscow.

[13] Pal, S K and Pal, A (Eds.) (2002). Pattern Recognition: From Classical to Modern Approaches, World Scientifi c Press, Singapore.

[14] Pal, S K (2004). “Soft data mining, computational theory of perceptions, and rough-fuzzy approach”. Information Sciences, 163, 5-12.

[15] Pawlak, Z (1991). Rough Sets: Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Data, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.

[16] Witten, I H, et al. (2011). Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques, 3rd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann.

[17] Yang, J, et al. (2002). “Mining long sequential patterns in a noisy environment”. SIGMOD’ 02, 406-417.

[18] Yang, X B, et al. (2009). “Combination of interval-valued fuzzy set and soft set”. Computers and Mathematics with Applications, 58, 521-527.

[19] Zadeh, L A (1965). “Fuzzy set”. Information and Control, 8, 338-353.

[20] Zou, Y and Xiao, Z (2008). “Data analysis approaches of soft sets under incomplete information”. Knowledge Based Systems, 21, 941-945. n

Continued from Page 10


GSM technology has been adopted for specifi c railway use and development of this application commenced around 1997. This has now been standardized by the U.I.C. (French acronym for International Union of Railways) and is widely used among the European Railways. About 38 countries including India have now working GSM-R networks. Indian Railways have installed GSM-R over fi ve zones in the Northern and Eastern regions on 2,431 km of track - commissioned between 2005 and 2009.

Why GSM-R? European Railways chose the wireless network of GSM-R as the maintenance of cables or overhead lines had

become costlier. Moreover, emergency communication becomes easier and far more prompt against cable communication which has sockets placed at fi xed intervals. For Indian Railways additional benefi t arises with the elimination of the frequent need to replace stolen cable specially in the eastern regions, also avoid infrastructure for radio patching covering breaks in cable. The savings in lifecycle costs by replacing cable are so enormous that there was no need to perform a cost benefi t analysis. GSM-R enables voice/

data communication between train controller, drivers/guards of trains, and station masters within the controlled area. Also communications among running

staff of diff erent trains, trackside staff , shunting staff etc. are envisaged. GSM-R has other additional facilities incorporated such as voice broadcast call - to convey recorded announcements or orders to all users in a particular region; voice group call - to allow a supervisor to speak to a particular group of professionals, say, maintainers or shunting staff and receive feedback only one at a time; emergency call - any user, specially, the driver can call all the drivers of trains in his area, also the controller, by pressing a `red`button, all phones have ̀ red` buttons for the purpose of emergency calls; functional addressing -instead of ringing the full mobile number (11-15 digits here), a short code, say, the number of the train or engine can be dialed (prefi xed by a digit for the function) to reach the desired functionary faster; location dependant addressing - the driver can reach the controller or station master of the region he is in, by either pressing a button or dialing a short code (e.g. UKrail has prescribed a yellow button); and multilevel precedence or preemption - there are seven priority levels depending on the status of user and the user with higher priority can preempt an ongoing call of a lesser priority user-emergency call having the highest priority. The above features are termed Advanced Speech Call Items (ASCIs or ASCs), and these require translation to the appropriate mobile telephone numbers of users which is done by the Intelligent Network (IN) provided at the Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) with the help of concerned registers (HLR, GCR). At present, the ASC mechanism has been suspended on Indian Railways (IR) due to misuse by some operators which led to blocking of the network and will be recommissioned on the release of explicit instructions for use by the various operators to avoid future blocking. Also GSM-R is applicable to high speeds upto 500km/hr of trains.

Other Uses as on European Railways (ER)In addition to transmission of voice/data among various railway staff , the

Article Prof. (Dr.) V Purnachandra RaoEx. Director/Indian Railways Institute of Signal Engineering & Telecommunications (IRISET)-Secunderabad

GSM - R (Global System for Mobile Communication - Railway)

MS-Mobile Station NSS-Network Switching Subsystem HLR-Home Location Register EN-External NetworksBSS-Base Station Subsystem MSC-Mobile Switching Centre VLR-Visitor Location Register PRN-Private Railway NetworkBSC-Base Station Controller OMS-Operation and Maintainance System GCR-Group Call Register ON-Other NetworksBTS-Base Transceiver System IN-Intelligent Network VMS-Voice Mail Service SMS-Short Message Service PSTN-Public Switched Telephone Network


ER use this system for transmitting data for train control as well. This was conceived as a standard originally for EIRENE (European Integrated Railway Radio Enhanced Network) and part of a plan for ERTMS (European Railway Train Management System) for automatically controlling the train by transmitting data on train speeds and receiving data from transponders placed on track. Also passenger communication is available wherein the ordinary passenger gets information on follow-on connections - onward reservation details, hotel/taxi/bus reservations, newspaper and other texts via FAX and Internet access etc. These facilities are not used in India at present. It is however reported that some station masters on North Central Railway have used voice to convey signal aspects to drivers in times of fog in winter to avoid detentions, with the exchange of private numbers (colonial practice akin to variable PIN codes) and recording in voice recorder for authenticity. GSM-R is now compulsory for all new installations on ER.

GSM-R architecture simplifi ed: A simplifi ed architecture of GSM-R is illustrated. GSM-R is a cellular mobile network with the cells placed along the track and the base towers at the stations, the distance between base stations can be a maximum of 15 km but normally it is 10-12 km. The BTSs are two per station covering two overlapping cells and placed in a multiloop structure with 4 BTSs per BSC serving the needs of redundancy. The network is very similar to a public mobile cellular network but designed to cater for railway use such as the Advanced Speech Calls. For this an Intelligent Network (IN)

with special databases is provided to translate the special codes like functional numbers to individual mobile phone numbers. IN is assisted by the data in the HLR and GCR. The system is designed for a C/I (Carrier to Interference) ratio of greater than 15dB and should serve in dense forests, long tunnels, deep cuttings, gorges etc. Frequencies around 900 Mhz band are used and it is a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) system using Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) modulation. The paths linking BTSs, BSCs,

and MSC are covered by optic fi bre cable. A typical general purpose handset and a typical emergency call are illustrated. The controllers and engine drivers work with fi xed terminals and trackside personnel are supplied with rugged handsets (operational purpose), general purpose (light weight) handsets are given to all other train running staff .

Network suppliers: There are three network suppliers or operators in the global arena - Nortel (taken over by Kapsch), Nokia-Siemens, and Huawei. The ones installed in India are either from Nortel or Nokia-Siemens. The fi rst GSM-R in India was installed on Eastern Railway in 2005, earlier than the fi rst system in Europe, i.e. Netherlands which was commissioned in 2006.

Feedback: The feedback on the GSM-R systems installed on IR has been generally positive. There are pending demands from running staff for possession of additional handsets. Cases have been reported where failures of electric locomotives have been diagnosed faster with the help of loco controllers who could speak to the staff at site. Detentions could be avoided for trains in foggy conditions by transmission of signaling information.S ome problems due to nonairconditioning of BTSs in high-temperature zones in summer may have to be remedied in due course.

Need for indigenous development: With the GSM networks covering almost the whole of the country and mobile communication becoming an essential part of daily life and business, we cannot depend on imported equipments for

long. There is need to develop indigenous equipments by reverse engineering in the fi elds of semiconductor, computer, and wireless technologies, just as the Japanese, South Koreans, and Chinese have done. Next step is research & development to further upgrade the technology.

Future development: Some developments to update the technology to 4G are being considered in Europe and China, say, by adopting LTE/SAE,Wi-Max etc.

Bibliography[1] http://www.wikipedia.org /wiki/

GSM-R/[2] http://www.selex-comms.com/[3] http://www.uic.org/[4] http://www.gsmr-info.com/[5] http://www.rgsonline.co.uk/general/ n

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r Prof. (Dr.) V Purnachandra Rao has served the Indian Railways for 34 years in various capacities from Asst. Engineer to Chief Engineer (signal & telecom) and retired as Director/Indian Railways Institute of Signal Engineering & Telecommunications-Secunderabad. He obtained his Ph.D. from Anna University in “Application of microprocessors to Electronic Interlocking” during service and after retirement worked as Professor & Head/CSE & ECE deptts. as well as Principal in privately managed Engg. Colleges. At present he is a Professor (Emeritus) at an Engg. College in Chennai teaching electronics & computer engg. subjects. He is a life member of CSI.

PtTtwC

GSM-R enables voice/data communication between train controller, drivers/guards of trains, and station masters within the controlled area. Also communications among running staff of diff erent trains, trackside staff , shunting staff etc. are envisaged.

GSM-R is a cellular mobile network with the cells placed along the track and the base towers at the stations, the distance between base stations can be a maximum of 15 km but normally it is 10-12 km.


New for India! For more information on our latest white paper “Securing Sensitive Personal Data or Information: Using COBIT ® 5 for India’s IT Act” please visit the following link www.isaca.org/topic-india

IT Audit, Assurance, Control, Governance, Risk and Security

Bridge the Information Gap

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ISACA is synonymous with trust and value. The association of 100,000 constituents in 180 countries helps IT professionals achieve trust in, and value from, their information systems. One way it does this through the COBIT framework. Now in version 5, COBIT has helped enterprises worldwide understand and implement IT governance. There is still a general apprehension about terms like Governance and Management among technical persons. These terms are regarded as a lot of jargon with little practical use by the IT people. However, in this article we will demystify those terms and explain how COBIT 5 can add signifi cant business value through eff ective enterprise governance and management of IT. It will also discuss the practical aspects of COBIT that make it a compelling framework to be used.

ISACA was born as EDP Auditors’ Association (EDPAA) in the 1960s. Data processing in those days was restricted to manually entering data such as payroll information, bills and invoices, and processing them into pay rolls, fi nancial statements, and inventory records with the help of “electronic data processing equipment” in an EDP department. The internal workings of EDP machines, the programs, and the computation were a black box to others in the organization. This is when the need of EDP auditors was felt. They could check if all the computational rules were being correctly applied and ensure that the output from the EDP department was trustworthy. The importance of EDP auditors kept growing - and so did the complexity of the computer programs and technology. Somewhere there was a realization that the EDP department not only processed data, but also played a much bigger role in the organization, and the name changed to Information Systems Department. Keeping up with the trend, EDPAA became the Information Systems Audit and Control Association - and as its member base expanded, the association became known by its acronym only: ISACA.

A great benefi t of ISACA membership is the collaboration of members in the development and creation of best practices. COBIT is one such development.

Now known as COBIT only, it was initially called Control Objectives for Information and related Technology, and version one was released nearly two decades ago. At that time, its audience was mainly auditors. What is a control objective? Before we answer that, let us fi rst examine what a control is. It is similar to a brake pedal in an automobile. Just as a brake is used to prevent an accident, a control is used to prevent a catastrophe. It is a safeguard against possible mishaps. A control objective is the objective to be achieved by applying the control. Prevention of an accident or a catastrophe is the control objective here. In information systems, auditors will be concerned whether the right control objectives were selected and the right controls were applied. A control objective is ‘a statement of desired result or purpose to be achieved by implementing control procedures in a particular IT activity’ and the controls will be ‘the policies, procedures, practices and organizational structure to provide reasonable assurance that business objectives will be achieved and undesirable events will be prevented or detected and corrected’.

The fi rst edition of COBIT was replaced by version 2, which included many control practices and control activities relevant to IT controls. It still was a document by IT auditors and for IT auditors.

The big change came with the publication of COBIT Third Edition, with its business objective orientation. At this time, COBIT was termed an IT management framework. The third edition identifi ed that an organization needs IT not just for information processing, but also to achieve business objectives. The business objectives could be achieved by having the right type of information that the business needs.

What is the right type of information? It is the information that meets criteria such as eff ectiveness, effi ciency, confi dentiality, integrity, availability, compliance, and reliability.

What you need to achieve this quality of information? The right IT resources.

What are the IT resources? People, application systems, technology, facilities, and data constitute the resources.

How do you put all these together as a well directed machinery to meet business objectives?

Here, ISACA came out with the concept of IT governance, which was governance over information technology and its processes with the business goal of adding value, while balancing risk vs. return. So, if you have to invest in a fi rewall, IT governance will require you to ensure that this investment in information technology will meet the business goal of securing the confi dentiality of the information, while balancing the risk against the return. COBIT Third Edition attracted many IT professionals who could identify the utility of talking business language while explaining the need for better IT implementation. When addressing senior management, it is a must to speak in business language and not get into IT jargon. Especially when the organization is planning to invest millions of dollars, there has to be a good business justifi cation. COBIT Third Edition could build the bridge between technical people and business people by allowing them to speak the same language.

COBIT Third Edition also published detailed management guidelines and identifi ed critical success factors, key goal indicators, key performance indicators and maturity models, high-level control objectives, and detailed control objectives. It divided all the control objectives in four top-level domains and mapped the processes with information criteria and IT resources.

With so much emphasis on IT governance, it was only logical that COBIT 4.0, introduced in 2005, was positioned as an IT governance framework. It elaborated the principles of COBIT Third Edition into greater details and supplemented the eff orts with publications like Val IT and Risk IT. COBIT 4.1 set the industry standard for IT governance.

Apart from the ISACA-developed frameworks, there are a number of highly successful standards adopted by the industry. The standards from the ISO27000 series are almost mandatory for information security implementation. The ITIL framework is highly regarded when implementing IT services. The PMBOK is very popular among the

Article Avinash W KadamAdvisor, ISACA’s India Task Force

The Evolution of COBIT


project management professionals. But none of these provides a framework that can be called an “enterprise governance framework”. All of these standards are excellent in a particular niche area which they serve very well. But they do not keep an enterprise-wide view. ISACA identifi ed this as a challenge when creating COBIT 5. The targets before the COBIT 5 development team were:• To ‘tie together and reinforce ISACA

knowledge assets with COBIT5’.• Provide a renewed governance

and management framework for enterprise information and related technology.

• Align with other major frameworks and standards in the marketplace, including ITIL, ISO standards etc.

The COBIT 5 team has done an admirable job of meeting all these challenges. COBIT 5 not only knits all the ISACA frameworks together, but also simplifi es them. It also helps in identifying the areas where other standards and frameworks should be used as they are more appropriate to meet the specifi c requirements.

To begin with, COBIT 5 has clearly defi ned the governance and management roles. The governance job is to set the direction in which the organization should move and keep it on the set path. This can be done only by understanding the needs of all the stakeholders, i.e. all those who are keenly interested in the organization. The people who govern are those who evaluate, direct, and monitor if the organization is making progress in the set direction.

The management task is to ‘plan, build, run and monitor activities in alignment with the direction set by the governance body to achieve the enterprise objectives’.

The governance function is the responsibility of the board of directors and its chairman. They decide the right priorities and right direction for the organization. Management function is the responsibility of the management team under the leadership of the Chief Executive Offi cer. His/her responsibility is to put the appropriate plans in action to achieve the goals set by the governance body.

An example could be a ship. The ship is managed by a hierarchy of sailors, which can be compared to a hierarchy of management of a company. However, a

captain governs the ship. Just as it is the captain’s job to set the ship in the right direction, it is the governance function’s job to set the right direction. You can probably spot the similarity in the destiny of many ships and companies that sank to the bottom because of bad governance.

Another new feature in COBIT 5 is a goals cascade. The stakeholders of an enterprise are propelled into some action because of various challenges they may face. These could be because of environmental change, such as a new privacy law, or a technological evolution, such as the explosion of online activities and e-commerce opportunities. These stakeholder drivers make the stakeholders’ needs very prominent. The enterprise governance objectives need to be set to meet the stakeholders’ needs. The governance objectives would have to ensure that the stakeholders get the benefi ts with an optimum level of resources and an exposure to the optimum level of risk. If the stakeholders are concerned about the e-commerce challenges, the governance objectives will be to lead the organization toward investment in the right technology that provides the best returns with optimum risk, neither too much, nor too little.

From the identifi ed stakeholder needs, the goals cascade gives us mapping tables to identify which enterprise goals need to be selected, what the supporting IT-related goals are, and which enabler goals will help in achieving the enterprise objectives.

COBIT 5 has identifi ed seven enablers that are ‘factors that, individually and collectively, infl uence whether something will work - in this case governance and management over enterprise IT’.

The seven enablers are taken from the COBIT 5 publication:1. Principles, policies, and frameworks

are the vehicles to translate the desired behaviour into practical guidance for day-to-day management.

2. Processes describe an organized set of practices and activities to achieve certain objectives and produce a set of outputs in support of achieving overall IT-related goals.

3. Organisational structures are the key decision-making entities in an enterprise.

4. Culture, ethics, and behaviour of individuals and of the enterprise

are very often underestimated as a success factor in governance and management activities, but they set the tone of the organisation.

5. Information is pervasive throughout any organisation and includes all information produced and used by the enterprise. Information is required for keeping the organization running and well governed, but at the operational level, information is very often the key product of the enterprise itself.

6. Services, infrastructure, and applications include the infrastructure, technology, and applications that provide the enterprise with information technology processing and services.

7. People, skills, and competencies are linked to the staff and are required for successful completion of all activities and for making correct decisions and taking corrective actions.

The second enabler, processes, has identifi ed the IT processes required to achieve the enterprise goals. The IT processes are selected based on the IT-related goals, which were identifi ed as a part of the goals cascade. You can see that everything gets linked through the goals cascade. There are 37 IT processes, of which 5 are governance processes and 32 are management processes. COBIT 5 makes it easy to locate the right process that will help us to achieve the IT-related goals through some well-designed tables.

There are four publications related to COBIT 5 which you should download from www.isaca.org/cobit. COBIT 5 will be referred to often in business circles for all enterprise governance needs. I encourage you to download it today so you can join the conversation.

Avinash Kadam, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CRISC, CISSP, CSSLP, CBCP, is currently advisor to the ISACA's India Task Force. He is also a past international vice president of the association. He can be contacted via e-mail [email protected]

Opinion expressed in the blog are his personal opinions and do not necessarily refl ect the views of ISACA.

Reference To download COBIT 5, COBIT 5: Enabling Processes, COBIT 5 Implementation or COBIT 5 for Information Security, visit www.isaca.org/cobit n


Programming.Tips() »

Fun with Diophantine Equations in CPERSPECTIVE:Programming can be helpful in everyday life. I would like to illustrate the aforementioned viewpoint via a simple example. Once while reading a book on puzzles, I came across the following question:

Question. Five pirates steal a trunk containing gold coins. They are quite tired so they decide to divide the gold coins among themselves the next day. During the night one of the pirates decides to take a few gold coins for himself. He divides the gold coins into fi ve equal parts and fi nds that one coin is still left. He decides to keep one pile for himself. He keeps the extra gold coin in his pile and keeps the remaining four piles back into the trunk.

One by one all the pirates carry out the same procedure. Each pirate divides the coins into fi le piles, and fi nds one extra coin left over. He keeps one pile along with the extra gold coin for himself and keeps the remaining piles back into the trunk. What is the smallest number of coins that could have been in the trunk initially?

Solution. Let the total number of coins in the trunk = n.From the question n = 5a + 1, where a is the number of coins in a pile, (i)4a = 5b + 1, where b is the number of coins in a pile formed after the first pirate has taken his share, (ii)4b = 5c + 1, where c is the number of coins in a pile formed after the second pirate has taken his share, (iii)4c = 5d + 1, where d is the number of coins in a pile formed after the third pirate has taken his share, (iv)4d = 5e + 1, where e is the number of coins in a pile formed after the fourth pirate has taken his share (v)

From (i), n + 4 = 5a + 5. Thus n + 4 = 5(a + 1).From (ii), 4a + 4 = 5b + 5. Thus 4(a + 1) = 5(b + 1).From (iii), 4b + 4 = 5c + 5. Thus 4(b + 1) = 5(c + 1).From (iv), 4c + 4 = 5d + 5. Thus 4(c + 1) = 5(d + 1).From (v), 4d + 4 = 5e + 5. Thus 4(d + 1) = 5(e + 1).

But this point proved to be a dead-end as I could not solve fi ve equations, containing six unknowns. The above system of equations are actually classifi ed as Diophantine equations. It is exactly at this point that I felt a program could be used for fi nding the answer. The logic is quite simple and that is to divide the coins into fi ve piles with each pile containing the same number of coins and there should be one surplus coin. The program along with the sample output is presented below:#include<stdio.h>main(){ int pirate1, pirate2, pirate3, pirate4, pirate5, t, casecount=0; for(pirate1 = 11; pirate1 < 20000; pirate1++) { if((pirate1%5)==1) { t=(pirate1 - 1)/5; pirate2=pirate1-t-1; if((pirate2%5)==1) { t = (pirate2 - 1)/5; pirate3=pirate2-t-1; if((pirate3%5)==1) { t = (pirate3 - 1)/5; pirate4=pirate3-t-1; if((pirate4%5)==1) { t = (pirate4 - 1)/5; pirate5=pirate4-t-1; { if((pirate5%5)==1) { casecount++; printf("\nCase %d", casecount);

printf("\nTotal no. of coins found by the first pirate= %d, Coins in a heap = %d", pirate1, (pirate1-1)/5); printf("\nTotal no. of coins found by the second pirate= %d, Coins in a heap = %d", pirate2, (pirate2-1)/5); printf("\nTotal no. of coins found by the third pirate= %d, Coins in a heap = %d", pirate3, (pirate3-1)/5); printf("\nTotal no. of coins found by the fourth pirate= %d, Coins in a heap = %d", pirate4, (pirate4-1)/5); printf("\nTotal no. of coins found by the fifth pirate= %d, Coins in a heap = %d\n\n", pirate5, (pirate5-1)/5); } } } } } } } return 0;}

OUTPUT:Case 1Total no. of coins found by the first pirate= 3121, Coins in a heap = 624Total no. of coins found by the second pirate= 2496, Coins in a heap = 499Total no. of coins found by the third pirate= 1996, Coins in a heap = 399Total no. of coins found by the fourth pirate= 1596, Coins in a heap = 319Total no. of coins found by the fifth pirate= 1276, Coins in a heap = 255Case 2Total no. of coins found by the first pirate= 6246, Coins in a heap = 1249Total no. of coins found by the second pirate= 4996, Coins in a heap = 999Total no. of coins found by the third pirate= 3996, Coins in a heap = 799Total no. of coins found by the fourth pirate= 3196, Coins in a heap = 639Total no. of coins found by the fifth pirate= 2556, Coins in a heap = 511Case 3Total no. of coins found by the first pirate= 9371, Coins in a heap = 1874Total no. of coins found by the second pirate= 7496, Coins in a heap = 1499Total no. of coins found by the third pirate= 5996, Coins in a heap = 1199Total no. of coins found by the fourth pirate= 4796, Coins in a heap = 959Total no. of coins found by the fifth pirate= 3836, Coins in a heap = 767Case 4Total no. of coins found by the first pirate= 12496, Coins in a heap = 2499Total no. of coins found by the second pirate= 9996, Coins in a heap = 1999Total no. of coins found by the third pirate= 7996, Coins in a heap = 1599Total no. of coins found by the fourth pirate= 6396, Coins in a heap = 1279Total no. of coins found by the fifth pirate= 5116, Coins in a heap = 1023Case 5Total no. of coins found by the first pirate= 15621, Coins in a heap = 3124Total no. of coins found by the second pirate= 12496, Coins in a heap = 2499Total no. of coins found by the third pirate= 9996, Coins in a heap = 1999Total no. of coins found by the fourth pirate= 7996, Coins in a heap = 1599Total no. of coins found by the fifth pirate= 6396, Coins in a heap = 1279Case 6Total no. of coins found by the first pirate= 18746, Coins in a heap = 3749Total no. of coins found by the second pirate= 14996, Coins in a heap = 2999Total no. of coins found by the third pirate= 11996, Coins in a heap = 2399Total no. of coins found by the fourth pirate= 9596, Coins in a heap = 1919Total no. of coins found by the fifth pirate= 7676, Coins in a heap = 1535

There were 3121 coins in the heap. Five heaps can be constructed from 3121 coins with each heap containing 624 coins and there will be one extra coin. After removing one heap and the extra coin, 2496 coins will be left. Five heaps can be constructed from 2496 coins with each heap containing 499 coins and again there will be one extra coin. After removing one heap and the extra coin, 1996 coins will be left. Five heaps containing 399 coins can be constructed from 1996 coins and there will be one extra coin. After removing one heap and the extra coin, 1596 coins will be left. Five heaps containing 319 coins can be constructed from 1596 coins and there will be one extra coin. After removing one heap and the extra coin 1276 coins will be left.

After 3121 coins, the next possibilities are 6246, 9371, 12496, 15621, 18746, ...

Finding the solution using a program was relatively easier.


Wallace JacobSr. Asst. Prof. at Tolani Maritime [email protected]

www.csi-india.orgCSI Communications | September 2012 | 24


Umesh PDepartment of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, University of Kerala

Programming.Learn (“Python”) »

“CGI Python”Let’s have a look at the following situations - (1) you need to create a registration form for some event or a seminar. When a user enters his/her personal details and affi liation, it should be processed and the user should be greeted with a welcome message demanding registration fee. (It can also be saved into a database, which will be discussed in coming issue) and (2) A user enters his/her annual income and other details, then perform some statistical calculation using scipy or numpy module and shows the amount to be paid as tax in an html page. The above two cases can be addressed by using CGI programming using Python. In this session we will discuss CGI programming using Python. The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is the standard method to communicate with programs or script using html interface. There are three parts in this - fi rst is an html page which will pass the data from the client side. Second is web server software, that delivers pages to client on the request using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol and third one is programming language, like C, Perl, PHP Java, or Visual Basic, python using which, scripts can be written for specifi c purposes. The prominence of CGI program is, user can write programs in the favorite platform and it can be used for webpage development, which will interact with the user dynamically. Unlike other programming languages, Python CGI programming is very easy. To try a CGI program you need to install web server which helps to access fi les through http through Internet or in the same computer which we are using. Here we can use Apache server, which was very instrumental in the revolution of World Wide Web and is commonly used. Apache server supports most of the languages like PHP, Perl, and Python. You can download Apache server from http://apache.org as per your operating system. Now install Apache server in your PC. To check whether the installation of Apache server is successful, open the browser and type local host. If the browser displays “It works!” then you are ready for action. Almost all Linux platforms supports CGI programming and has preconfi gured directory called CGI directory usually named as cgi bin. For Linux users, this directory can be found at /var/www/cgi-bin. Now the fi rst step is to make the web server to execute the python scripts. This can be done by adding .py in the AddHandler block (line 393) of httpd.conf fi le (this can be found at the path /var/www in linux). Add .py preceding to the line AddHandler cgi-script .cgi Windows users can locate conf folder in the directory where you installed Apache. Inside conf folder you can fi nd httpd.conf fi le. That is, fi nally the AddHandler line will be AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .py Yes!!! Now your webserver is equipped to do CGI programming using Python. In the server side, to show the path of the python executable installed, specify the path of the python.exe in the fi rst line of the python fi le. For this, code is as follows: #!C:/Python27/python.exe (for Windows- If Python is installed in C:/Python27) #!/usr/bin/python (for Linux) Now write the following python program and save it in cgi-bin directory.#!D:/Python27/python.exeprint "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n"print '<html>'print '<head>'print '<h1>I begin my CGI journey in Python</h1>'print '</head>'print '</html>'

Program 1: example.pyIn browser, type - http://localhost/cgi-bin/example.py. This will give you the following output:

Fig. 1: Output of CGI program

Here we have received output in browser by running a python script. Or in other words, we can say that we have printed html page using python language. In some cases we need to process or save data entered through html form as for registration forms and verifi cation of email address. Let us make an html page through which you can enter your name and python scripts to process the name and display “hello ‘your name’”. For this we need to create an html page by specifying the root and name of the python fi le located at cgi-bin.

HTML code<html><body><form method="POST" action="http://localhost/cgi-bin/form.py"> <p>Please Enter Your Name: <input type="text" name="firstname"> <p>Click here to submit form: <input type="submit"></form></body></html>

Program 2: form.htmlHere we have made an html page which consists of one text box and a submit button. Here the name entered in the text box is stored in the variable firstname. When you submit the value this will be passed to the python fi le - form.py located in cgi-bin. Now we need to write Python program to receive the variable sent from the html page, and to process and print into another html page.

Fig. 2: Result obtained when GET method is used - see url

Python code#!D:\Python27\pythonimport cgidef main(): print "Content-type: text/html\n" form = cgi.FieldStorage() # parse query print "<h1>Hello", form["firstname"].value, "</h1>"main()

Program 3: form.pyIn the program, fi rst line describes the path of the python executable. The CGI program starts by importing cgi module. Content-type describes the format of the fi le being returned by the python program. Here we have used Content-type as html (Content-type: text/html). Now to parse the query, the total content is transferred to the variable - form. Each value stored in the variable form is obtained by using the code form["The name of input initiated in the html"].value Methods of sending browser information to the web server are GET and POST. In GET method, data is encoded into a URL, so that we can see the variables passing to the program. In POST method, data is encoded as messages inside the body. POST method can be used for sending data of large size, or sending passwords etc.

Fig. 3: Result obtained when POST method is used - see url


CIO Perspective

Managing Technology »

Business Information Systems: Changing Roles of CIOs

Dr. R M SonarChief Editor, CSI Communications

IT and Business: RelationshipThere have been many discussions on relationship between technology and business. Such as whether business drives technology or technology drives business. Aligning IT strategies with business strategies has been one of the long debated and deliberated topics.

As shown in Fig. 1, technology brings in innovations in businesses and the way businesses are done. It can off er new business models. For example, web technologies facilitated various e-Commerce business models and service-oriented architecture (SOA) makes it possible for many businesses to integrate various services such as payment, logistics etc. as virtual components in their overall IT systems using web services. Technologies like extranet allowed businesses to expand their reach to their stakeholders such as dealers and service centers to be part of their network and have common IT setup. On the other hand, businesses are driving the kind of technologies required. For example, low-cost leadership makes the fi rm to invest in technologies that bring in substantial operational effi ciencies. A good case, Air Deccan[1], one of the low-cost airline operators, could manage its low-cost leadership by bringing in savings in tune of 20% on their distribution cost. It gained operational effi ciencies and access to larger customer base using the right IT strategies and technologies that suited to its business model. Its operations are limited to domestic market and fl ights are from point-to-point, this reduces its dependence on global fl ight reservations databases such as GDSs like Galileo and Amadeus and also there is no need to share revenue. Having its own

airline reservation systems, made sense. Capt. Gopinath was convinced that Internet delivery system is the most important ingredient for a low-cost airline, however he pointedly stated: “I’m not in favour of technology for technology’s sake. Solutions that our IT team delivers must be high-tech, but low-cost”. Similarly Air Deccan

opted for outsourcing model for software to reduce the cost. Sometimes it is win-win proposition. Business drives technology and technology enables more business. As social networking is more popular amongst the young generation, many fi rms are off ering social networking features as part of their service such as telecom operators to reach these customers. They facilitate Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Youtube interfaces from mobile phones. It means if the fi rm’s focussed customer base is young customers, they must choose social networking

technologies (IT strategies aligned with business ones) to attract and retain them, while at the same time social networking (IT brings in business advantages) may facilitate more business using referrals, word-of-mouth marketing, personalization and contextual advertisements, cross-selling opportunities etc.

Change in Technologies and Roles of CIOsAs the technology and the way businesses are done are changing rapidly, the IT skills and resources required are also changing at fast pace. As discussed in earlier article on information systems[2], the technology has evolved from mainframes, PCs and network based computing to cloud computing. The Internet, eCommerce, enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, ERP, KM), business intelligence and analytics, mobility and emergence of various delivery channels like smart devices, mobile computing, SOA (service-oriented technologies), web 2.0 technologies, and big data are infl uencing the functions and roles of CIOs.

Technologies have become more standard, open, collaborative, mobile and social, making CIOs to get rid of stand alone, proprietary, and complex IT systems. However, as shown in Fig. 2, the end-users of the systems are no more limited to within the fi rm but outside the fi rm.

Accessible to everybody, people can connect, express and share

Employees, individual customers, players in ecosystem

All employees of the organization

Employees within function/ department

Enterprise level

Functional and monolithic

Integrated and extended(inclusive)

Collective and collaborative

Ubiquitous and social

Main-frames

Com

pute

r ce

ntric

Net

wor

k ce

ntric

Hum

an

cent

ric

Stand alone PCs

Computer networks (C/S computing)

Internet and intranet technologies

Web 2.0 and semantic web technologies

Smart, ubiquitous and sensor based devices, mashable apps

Fig. 2: Evoluti on of technology and end users

Technology

Business

ImpactBusinessdrives andaligns ITstrategies withbusiness strategies

Bring inefficiencies,facilitateinnovations,and offer competitiveadvantage

Fig. 1: Technology and business: relati onship


Complexity increases while implementing such systems since end-users are not only internal employees but also customers, employees of partners (such as franchises, dealers, service centers) in the business ecosystem. This needs IT people to consider the requirements and perspectives of all kinds of end-users. For example, Internet allowed banks to extend their services to customers through net banking. In such scenario, even if back-end systems of the bank are robust but if net-banking interfaces provided to the customers are not user-friendly or interactive, it will defi nitely have adverse impact. Although employee hours of working may be limited 8-10 hours, but customers expect such systems to be available and accessible 24 hours/7 days a week. This means systems must be developed and deployed to be available and run continuously. On social media it becomes even more complex as people can express and share their experiences. If people are not happy with the systems, their unhappiness is not only limited to themselves but they express and share that with others. This can greatly impact the fi rm’s image.

1 Governance of the IT function

2 Operating the core infrastructure and related services

3 Managing the applications portfolio supporting business processes

4 Recruiting and managing IT skills, expertise, and people

5 Developing and retaining IT project management skills

6 Managing the suppliers of IT services and products

7 Measuring and managing the company’s IT investments

Table 1: Manager of IT resources and operati ons[3]

It is no more a decision of build or buy but also of whether to rent or subscribe. When it comes to rent or subscribe, CIOs

need to spend less time on building and understanding systems and make them more business-savvy than technology savvy. They can leverage on partnership with vendors, low-cost technologies, and reusable applications available in the ecosystem including that of open source, which delivers benefi ts quickly such as get more customers, retain them, understand customer needs etc. Policy and standards for business applications are managed by people who reside in business. Pace of technology change has increased dramatically and business change is bringing CIO and CEO together. Fig. 3 shows how roles of CIOs are evolving. Their roles are changing from merely data processing managers, IT service providers to innovators and agents of change. They cannot be just specialists. Technology is just an enabler, the fi rm has to adopt and use it benefi cially. Adoption can depend upon many factors such as culture, people, and processes. CIOs have evolved to understand both technology and business value of it. CIOs are emerging from the downturn with more responsibility and a louder voice in their organizations. Business priorities are based on various factors. Business value can help them to understand how to attract new customers, how to retain them, how to bring in cost optimization to bring profi ts etc. They have to constantly innovate to bring competitive

advantages to the fi rm and improve the bottom line.

Being part of CXOs, CIOs focus are: a) effi ciencies and cost optimization; b) business growth; c) innovation; d) relationship management with partners and vendors; e) managing governance, compliance, risk and service level agreements; and f) talent management etc. Depending upon the business, their priorities and weights may change. However, compared to other CxOs, the CIO has to be both a technologist and a business manager. There are many crucial roles and responsibilities the CIO plays apart from the housekeeping or providing IT services and operations. Today’s CIO is: a) well informed and educated: about market happenings, new technologies and technology trends, and best practices and how to leverage, b) one who understands the business and business value of IT, and c) innovative and agent of change. Table 1 and 2 show how roles of CIOs are evolving from IT managers to IT leaders.

Changing Business and Technology Priorities of CIOsTechnology priorities of CIOs may be infl uenced based on current trends in the market, best industry practices, maturity and acceptance of technologies, availability of skilled manpower etc. For example, currently BI/BA, cloud outsourcing, mobility, and social media have been on priority list of CIOs. BI/BA systems have been and will be on priority, since many fi rms have automated their core business processes and looking forward to make sense (and get insights out) of data generated by transaction systems to serve the customer better, conceptualize

• IT Manager• IT Knowledge• Internal focus• Automation

• IT leader and strategist• Knowledge about business and value• Understand market and leverage ecosystem• Innovation and competitive advantage

Fig. 3: Evoluti on of CIO’s role

Role Description

1 Chief architect Designs future possibilities for the business

2 Change leader Orchestrates resources to achieve optimal implementation of the future

3 Product developer Helps defi ne the company’s place in the emerging digital economy

4 Technology provocateur

Embeds IT into the business strategy

5 Coach Teaches people to acquire the skill sets they will need for the future

6 Chief operating strategist

Invents the future with senior management

Table 2: Leadership roles[4]


new products and services, see cross-selling opportunities etc. Priorities are important that have win-win proposition to the customer and to the fi rm. From Table 3[5] and Table 4[6,7], it is clear, that over the years, not only technology priorities have changed as new technologies came in and existing strengthened but also the business priorities have also changed. For example, mobile technologies and cloud computing did not exist in priority list in 2005 but in 2012 they were amongst top priorities. The reason may be mobile and cloud technologies were relatively new and not that accepted in 2005. Risk of testing new technologies

can be higher as technologies might not have matured or how the customers would accept them is not known. However, some fi rms venture into such new technologies, for example, Deutsche Lufthansa AG[8]. In 2000, it formed strategic partnership with Vodafone and began to analyze the potential of mobile technologies to support existing processes and services as well as ideas for new improved processes and services.

They initiated the project called mobile services as a part of large CRM project. There was greater risk in such projects as the technology was relatively new and they had no idea how customers would accept it. The project goals were business drivers, viz.: a) information supply to customers had to be improved; b) handling procedures had to be redesigned to improve effi ciency in terms of both customers and Lufthansa; c) improving the exploitation of cross-selling potential especially encouraging customers to spend more of their bonus miles; and d) innovative image of Lufthansa had to be stressed

demonstrating the company’s capability to design new and innovative solutions for its customers and bringing them to the market. The project was completed in 2005 and provided various mobile services: mobile check-in, fl ight related information (change in fl ight schedules, change in gates etc.), arrival and departure information, fl ight plan, miles and more balance, Lufthansa contact information and price information service etc.

The priorities of some technologies changed from 2005 to 2012, for example server virtualization priority was the last one. However, it became important in 2012 because technologies are expanded to desktops, storage and might have been matured. Also such technologies reduce support and maintenance cost. ERPs and upgrades, which were on higher priority list in 2005 are on lower priority in 2012. Priority for some of the technologies remained more or less the same, e.g. BI/BA.

Business priorities Technologies priorities

# 2005 2012 2005 2012

1 Business process improvement

Increasing enterprise growth Security enhancement tools Mobile technologies

2 Security breaches and disruptions

Attracting and retaining customers

Business Intelligence applications

Analytics and business intelligence

3 Enterprise-wide operating costs

Reducing enterprise costs Mobile workforce enablement Cloud computing (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)

4 Supporting competitive advantage

Managing and delivering operational results

Workfl ow management, deployment and integration

Virtualization desktop, server and storage

5 Data protection and privacy Creating new products and services (i.e. innovation)

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrades

Collaboration technologies (e.g. workfl ow management, team collaboration)

6 The need for revenue growth Attracting and retaining the workforce

Storage Management Legacy application modernization, upgrade or replacement

7 Using intelligence in products and services

Improving effi ciency Voice and data integration over IP

IT management technologies (e.g. program, project management, governance, change management)

8 Focus on internal controls Improving governance, compliance, risk, and security

Customer relationship management (CRM)

Security technologies (e.g. access control, authentication)

9 Shortage of business skills Increasing productivity Business process integration tools

Customer relationship management applications

10 Faster innovation and cycle times

Improving marketing and sales eff ectiveness

Server virtualization Enterprise resource applications (e.g. fi nance, HR)

1 Enhancing security and content management tools

2 Strengthening application infrastructure

3 Developing network infrastructure and e-enablement

Table 3: 2002 Prioriti es of CIO[5]

Table 4: Changing top business and technology prioriti es for CIOs[6,7]


On business priorities side (Table 3 and 4), there is clear shift from managing and improving internal IT processes and services to more business-focussed priorities such as growth, attracting, and retaining customers, reducing costs, managing and delivering operational results, improve effi ciency and productivity, compliance, risk and security etc.

Table 5 shows survey done by Harvey Nash, where it shows how CIOs are coming closer to business responsibilities and playing strategic roles rather than just managing the technologies and services.

Some of the Challenges and Issues Faced by CIOs from Various IT Case Studies• First and foremost challenge is to make wise investment in IT systems. Systems bought today may become obsolete down the line. • Justifying RoI on IT projects especially if projects involve lot of intangible benefi ts. • As the business grows, the IT systems if not properly designed, developed, and implemented may face issues such as scalability.• Managing and retaining IT talent and skills. Opting for open source is more challenging for the CIO unless the fi rm has good team of IT specialists who understand the open source technologies. Other challenges typically faced by fi rms like banks are - the IT professionals: a) lack soft skills; b) look for career prospects to grow on ladder; c) do not want always to be specialists but over a period of time want leadership positions; d) demand pay packages that are higher than other employees; and e) want to work on diff erent types of projects or new technologies to enhance their skills and on what market demands.• For new project if initiated from IT department, buy-in process inside the organization is always a challenge. It is a tough task as people prefer traditional way of doing things and do not want to change. It changes roles and responsibilities which

people are not happy with. It does matter whether initiative is coming from user department or from IT department. The buy-in process can be faster if IT project requirement itself is initiated by user department (means they feel need for the same) or CIO partners with end-users, educate them, understand their problems, and helps them to address those. When IT projects span across the business partners such as extranet, the partners need to accept the system. However, in any case top management system support is absolutely necessary.• Enforcing various IT policies (including access and usage policies) across the organizations. Security policies may require employees to go through more checks and controls. There is always trade-off between fl exibility and more security. Senior executives want more autonomy when it comes to procuring IT and are reluctant to follow strict security norms. • Long-term projects sometimes face issues as management change, people change, perspective change that can lead to failure of projects.

Bottom LineAs technologies evolve, so does the functions, roles, and responsibilities of CIOs. Since technologies are changing at rapid pace CIOs have to constantly reinvent and align with these changes. They cannot stop at any point otherwise others will move ahead and gain competitive advantage. There is lot of debate on whether CIO should have good business knowledge or he should be only a technology specialist. There is a trade off . The fi rm may have IT function headed by a person, who understands the business well and knows how to get it done by IT people. Having business and technology knowledge is great but may not be always possible. However, emergence of new technologies, open standards, open architectures, open source, new ecosystems facilitated by cloud computing platforms such as salesforce.com, social networking

websites like facebook.com, many new players in business ecosystem such as independent software vendors who develop and share small applications on smart devices, ubiquitous computing etc.; relieve CIOs from being specialists. His or her skills will be how he or she manages relationships and service level agreements with players in the ecosystem, leverages on such ecosystems, exploits everything for better business value, and develops capabilities to confi gure systems dynamically based on business demands and so on.

References[1] Vijay Ramachandran, Air Deccan’s Cost

Optimization: A case study on Mobility in Services, CIO World, 1(2), December 1, 2005 available at http://www.cio.in/case-study/air-deccan%E2%80%99s-cost-optimization

[2] R M Sonar. Business Information Systems: The Changing Landscape, Computer Society of India Communication, 35(11), February 2012

[3] Current and Future Challenges: The Chief Information Offi cer. Accessed in August 2012. http://www.leadershipexpertise.com/resources/CIO%20Current%20and%20Future%20Challenges.pdf

[4] Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). (1996). “Six IS Leadership Roles” in P. Gottschalk (2000) “Information Systems Executives: The Changing Role of New IS/IT Leaders”. Informing Science Journal, Vol. 3, Issue 2.

[5] Gartner Survey: CIO Priorities in 2002. Accessed in August 2012, http://www.gartner.com/resources/104300/104395/top_cio_priorities_in_2002_a_104395.pdf

[6] Gartner Survey: CIO Priorities in 2005: Accessed in August 2012: http://davidjf.free.fr/new/Xcost_gartner%20survey%20of%201,300%20cios%20shows%20it%20budgets%20to%20increase%20by%20...pdf

[7] Gartner Survey: Top 10 CIO Technology Priorities vs Top 10 Business Priorities: Accessed in August 2012. http://blog.thehigheredcio.com/2012/03/05/gartner-top-10-cio-technology-priorities-vs-top-10-business-priorities/

[8] Laudon, Kenneth. C, and Laudon, Jane. P. Management information systems: Managing the digital fi rm, Pearson Education, 2008.

[9] Harvey-Nash CIO Survey 2011. Accessed August 2012. http://w w w . c o m p u t e r w e e k l y . c o m /news/1280095882/CIO-roles-divided-between-innovators-and-housekeepers-fi nds-Harvey-Nash-survey n

50% of CIOs sit on the board or executive management team, up 8% from 2010.

69% of CIOs report having more strategic responsibility, the highest proportion so far.

37% of CIOs have a global role, up by 5% from 2010.

32% of CIOs report to the CEO, up from 3% in 2010.

18% of CIOs report to the senior fi nance executive. Table 5: CIO’s growing infl uence and responsibility[9]


Shared Services OrganizationIntroduction Organization is a group of people working with defi nite objectives for business. The objectives of organization derive strategy to perform tasks so that business can be successful. The task defi nes jobs and skills required for human resources. The organization needs human resources with varied skills which are complementary to each other. These human resources need to be organized to achieve organizational objectives. Organizing involves dividing human resources into various functions according to their jobs and skills. Defi ning and delegating authority within and among functions is also important while organizing the functions.

Traditional functions are Human Resources, Sales and Marketing, Accounts and Finance, and Purchase. Within last two decades Supply Chain, Information Technology, and Environmental/Sustainability have emerged as new functions in organizations. Along with these functions, there are always few more functions which are very industry specifi c, e.g. manufacturing industry may have functions such as Engineering, Maintenance, Design, Development and Research. Moreover, an organization may require few more functions that are specifi c to the organization.

Each organization has to have an organization structure. However, having responsive organization structure which will commit to performance and quality is a big challenge for HR managers. This challenge has become two-fold because organizations are facing cost pressure, global scale, and slowing economies. This has generated need for one more function known as Shared Services Function. The organization which has aligned their organization structure to pave the culture of sharing is known as Shared Services Organization.

Concept of Shared ServicesShared Services function (SS) is a subset of existing business functions which is concentrated into a new, semiautonomous business unit that has a management structure designed to promote effi ciency, value generation, cost savings, and improved service for the internal as well as external customers of the parent corporation[1].

Shared services act as a horizontal function serving to other functions of

parent organization. Each function has to standardize and share their services with SS. In shared services model, SS function has to consolidate the services and serve centrally to all customers of organization in the form which is very useful to users/customers. SS is a consolidation of services and not centralization of services as control of services remain with their respective functions[1,7].

Implementing Shared ServicesShared services have been adopted since 1980s and GE is supposed to be the fi rst organization to implement SS successfully. Compared to earlier years, adoption of SS is on the rise in last two years. Major implementations are observed in US and UK as compared to organizations in the rest of world[3,4].

Because of SS model, core functions can focus on their core competencies whereas SS can focus on customer service and provide best service level. In SS model, functions have to decide services under SS. Necessary functionality of services under SS are also fi nalized by their respective functions. However, SS can gather customer feedback for functionality of services and shares with their functions so that functionality of services can be improved. Service level agreements (SLAs) and its escalation is responsibility of SS.

Shared services act as separate function of organization. The purpose of this function is cost saving and better service, hence designing of SS structure is very crucial. While designing SS organization, it is important to consider the following points: • SS is developed as cost benefi t

center; hence return on investment should be achieved in shorter span. Thus, there should be control on number of resources used in SS.

• Processes have to be standardized and then should be shared with SS.

• Technology should be adopted as much as possible so that number of resources can be controlled.

• The necessary knowledge and training should be provided to employees of SS. This will help them to resolve all queries at their level; hence core functions don’t have to be involved in answering user queries.

• Proper documentation and powerful self-help has to be developed in order to reduce number of queries to executives of SS.

• SLAs have to be developed and followed.

The above mentioned points help in analyzing resources required and escalation policies. The job roles and workfl ow can also be designed. It will also support in delegation of authority and decision making process.

Shared services need standardized processes for fast and smooth implementation. Centralized fi rms are better placed to move quickly to effi cient shared services. While decentralized fi rms face some issues in implementation because of nonstandardized processes across divisions[6].

Levering full benefi t of shared services is diffi cult unless[2]: • There is strong commitment from

leadership. • Involvement of stakeholders and

employees. • Strong change management to

impart culture of shared organization. • Eff ective corporate governance.

Driving Factors of SS Cost is always a major driving factor for developing SS organization. The other driving factors are: • Standardized processes across

organization to increase operating performance and eliminate duplicate processes.

• Provide better service and experience to customer by defi nite SLAs because of standardization.

• Impart culture of sharing and innovation in organization.

The benefi ts of SS can be realized if it is implemented eff ectively and well accepted across organization.

Role of ICT in SSInformation and communication technology (ICT) has a major role to play in implementing and serving SS. ICT involves facilitating automation and reducing time to service. Thus, less human resources as well as man-hours are required to provide any service. This reduces cost and increases service level. Adoption of ICT helps in reducing infrastructure and scaling

HR Dr. Manish GodseResearch Analyst, Infosys [email protected], [email protected]

Continued on Page 32


Digital evidence or electronic evidence is any probative information stored or transmitted in digital form that a party to a court case may use at trial. Before accepting digital evidence a court will determine if the evidence is relevant, whether it is authentic, if it is hearsay and whether a copy is acceptable or the original is required.

e-EVIDENCE can be found in emails, digital photographs, ATM transaction logs, word processing, documents, instant message histories, fi les saved from accounting programs, spreadsheets, Internet browser histories databases, contents of computer memory, computer backups, computer printouts, Global Positioning System tracks, logs from a hotel’s electronic door locks, and digital video or audio fi les. Digital evidence tends to be more voluminous, more diffi cult to destroy, easily modifi ed, easily duplicated, potentially more expressive, and more readily available.

Computer forensics is a branch of forensic science pertaining to legal evidence found in computers and digital storage mediums. Computer forensics is also known as digital forensics. The goal of computer forensics is to explain the current state of a digital artifact. The term digital artifact can include: a computer system storage medium (hard disk or CD-ROM), an electronic document (e.g. an email message or JPEG image), or even a sequence of packets moving over a computer network. Digital evidence is “information of probative value that is stored or transmitted in binary form”. Evidence is not only limited to that found on computers but may also extend to include evidence on digital devices such as telecommunication or electronic multimedia devices.

The Information Technology Act, 2000 and its amendment are based on the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) model Law on Electronic Commerce. An amendment to the Indian Evidence Act 1872, the Indian Penal Code 1860, and the Banker's Book Evidence Act 1891 provides the legislative framework for transactions in electronic world. The defi nition of 'evidence' has been amended to include electronic records. The defi nition of 'documentary evidence' has been amended to include all documents, including electronic records produced for inspection by the court. Section 3 of the Evidence Act, 1872 defi nes

evidence as under: "Evidence" - Evidence means and includes: 1) all statements which the court permits or requires to be made before it by witnesses, in relation to matters of fact under inquiry; such statements are called oral evidence; 2) all documents including electronic records produced for the inspection of the court. Such documents are called documentary evidence.

The term 'electronic records' has been given the same meaning as that assigned to it under the IT Act. IT Act provides for "data, record or data generated, image or sound stored, received or sent in an electronic form or microfi lm or computer-generated microfi che". The defi nition of 'admission' (Section 17 of the Evidence Act) has been changed to include a statement in oral, documentary, or electronic form which suggests an inference to any fact at issue or of relevance. New Section 22-A has been inserted into Evidence Act, to provide for the relevancy of oral evidence regarding the contents of electronic records. It provides that oral admissions regarding the contents of electronic records are not relevant unless the genuineness of the electronic records produced is in question.

New sections 65-A and 65-B are introduced to the Evidence Act, under the Second Schedule to the IT Act. Section 65-A provides that the contents of electronic records may be proved in accordance with the provisions of Section 65-B. Section 65-B provides that notwithstanding anything contained in the Evidence Act, any information contained in an electronic form, is deemed to be a document and is admissible in evidence without further proof of the original's production, provided that the conditions set out in Section 65-B are satisfi ed.

Section 65-B(1) states that if any information contained in an electronic record produced from a computer (known as computer output) has been copied on to an optical or magnetic media, then such electronic record that has been copied 'shall be deemed to be also a document' subject to conditions set out in Section 65-B(2) being satisfi ed. Both in relation to the information as well as the computer in question such document 'shall be admissible in any proceedings when further proof or production of the original as evidence of any contents of the original or of any fact stated

therein of which direct evidence would be admissible’.

The conditions specifi ed in Section 65-B(2) are: 1. Firstly, the computer output containing

the information should have been produced by the computer during the period over which the computer was used regularly to store or process information for the purpose of any activities regularly carried on over that period by the person having lawful control over the use of the computer.

2. The second requirement is that it must be shown that during the said period, the information of the kind contained in electronic record or of the kind from which the information contained is derived was 'regularly fed into the computer in the ordinary course of the said activity'.

3. A third requirement is that during the material part of the said period, the computer should have been operating properly and that even if it was not operating properly for some time that break should not aff ect either the record or the accuracy of its contents.

4. The fourth requirement is that the information contained in the record should be a reproduction or derived from the information fed into the computer in the ordinary course of the said activity.

Under Section 65-B(4), the certifi cate which identifi es the electronic record containing the statement and describes the manner in which it was produced giving the particulars of the device involved in the production of that record and deals with the conditions mentioned in Section 65-B(2) and is signed by a person occupying a responsible offi cial position in relation to the operation of the relevant device 'shall be evidence of any matter stated in the certifi cate’.

Electronic Evidence - Case Laws1. In Amitabh Bagchi vs. Ena Bagchi (AIR 2005 Cal 11) [Sections 65-A and 65-B of Evidence Act, 1872 were analyzed.]The court held that the physical presence of person in Court may not be required for purpose of adducing evidence and the

Information Security »

Electronic Evidence & Cyber Law

Security Corner Adv. Prashant Mali [BSc (Physics), MSc (Comp Science), LLB]

Cyber Law ExpertEmail: [email protected]


same can be done through medium like video conferencing. Sections 65-A and 65-B provide provisions for evidences relating to electronic records and admissibility of electronic records, and that defi nition of electronic records includes video conferencing.

2. State of Maharashtra vs. Dr. Praful B Desai (AIR 2003 SC 2053) [The question involved whether a witness can be examined by means of a video conference.]The Supreme Court observed that video conferencing is an advancement of science and technology which permits seeing, hearing, and talking with someone who is not physically present with the same facility and ease as if they were physically present. The legal requirement for the presence of the witness does not mean actual physical presence. The court allowed the examination of a witness through video conferencing and concluded that there is no reason why the examination of a witness by video conferencing should not be an essential part of electronic evidence.

3. Bodala Murali Krishna vs. Smt. Bodala Prathima (2007 (2) ALD 72)The court held that, “…the amendments carried to the Evidence Act by introduction of Sections 65-A and 65-B are in relation to the electronic record. Sections 67-A and 73-A were introduced as regards proof and verifi cation of digital signatures. As regards presumption to be drawn about such records, Sections 85-A, 85-B, 85-C, 88-A and 90-A were added. These provisions are referred only to demonstrate that the emphasis, at present, is to recognize the electronic records and digital signatures, as admissible pieces of evidence.”

4. Dharambir vs. Central Bureau of Investigation (148 (2008) DLT 289) The court arrived at the conclusion that when Section 65-B talks of an electronic record produced by a computer referred to as the computer output, it would also include a hard disc in which information was stored or was earlier stored or continues to be stored. It distinguished as there being two levels of an electronic record. One is the hard disc which once used itself becomes an electronic record in relation to the information regarding the changes the hard disc has been subject to and which information is retrievable from the hard disc by using a software program. The other level of electronic record is the active accessible information recorded in the hard disc in the form of a text fi le, or sound fi le or a video fi le etc. Such information that is accessible can be converted or copied as such to another

magnetic or electronic device like a CD, pen drive etc. Even a blank hard disc which contains no information but was once used for recording information can also be copied by producing a cloned had or a mirror image.

5. In State (NCT of Delhi) vs. Navjot Sandhu (AIR 2005 SC 3820) There was an appeal against conviction following the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. This case dealt with the proof and admissibility of mobile telephone call records. While considering the appeal against the accused for attacking Parliament, a submission was made on behalf of the accused that no reliance could be placed on the mobile telephone call records, because the prosecution had failed to produce the relevant certifi cate under Section 65-B(4) of the Evidence Act. The Supreme Court concluded that a cross-examination of the competent witness acquainted with the functioning of the computer during the relevant time and the manner in which the printouts of the call records were taken was suffi cient to prove the call records.

6. In Jagjit Singh vs. State of Haryana ((2006) 11 SCC 1) The speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Haryana disqualifi ed a member for defection. When hearing the matter, the Supreme Court considered the digital evidence in the form of interview transcripts from the Zee News television channel, the Aaj Tak television channel, and the Haryana News of Punjab Today television channel.

The court determined that the electronic evidence placed on record was admissible and upheld the reliance placed by the speaker on the recorded interview when reaching the conclusion that the voices recorded on the CD were those of the persons taking action. The Supreme Court found no infi rmity in the speaker's reliance on the digital evidence and the conclusions reached by him. The comments in this case indicate a trend emerging in Indian courts: judges are beginning to recognize and appreciate the importance of digital evidence in legal proceedings.

7. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation vs. NRI Film Production Associates (P) Ltd. (AIR 2003 KANT 148) In this case certain conditions have been laid down for video-recording of evidence: a) Before a witness is examined in terms of the Audio-Video Link, witness is to fi le an affi davit or an undertaking duly verifi ed before a notary or a judge that the person who is shown as the witness is the same person as who is going to depose on the

screen. A copy is to be made available to the other side. (Identifi cation Affi davit).b) The person who examines the witness on the screen is also supposed to fi le an affi davit/undertaking before examining the witness with a copy to the other side with regard to identifi cation. c) The witness has to be examined during working hours of Indian Courts. Oath is to be administered through the media. d) The witness should not plead any inconvenience on account of time diff erence between India and USA.e) Before examination of the witness, a set of plaint, written statement and other documents must be sent to the witness so that the witness has acquaintance with the documents and an acknowledgement is to be fi led before the Court in this regard. f) The learned judge is to record such remarks as is material regarding the demur of the witness while on the screen. g) The learned judge must note the objections raised during recording of witness and to decide the same at the time of arguments.h) After recording the evidence, the same is to be sent to the witness and his signature is to be obtained in the presence of a Notary Public and thereafter it forms part of the record of the suit proceedings. i) The visual is to be recorded and the record would be at both ends. The witness also is to be alone at the time of visual conference and notary is to certifi cate to this eff ect. j) The learned judge may also impose such other conditions as are necessary in a given set of facts. k) The expenses and the arrangements are to be borne by the applicant who wants this facility.

ConclusionIndian evidence law has withstood the technology and cyber world challenges, as suitable amendments have been incorporated. However, much remains to be done to make it comprehensively adequate to face any technology update related challenges.

There is a dire need for updating and upgrading the entire justice system by adopting E-governance in Judiciary. Means, the daily usage of computers by judges and lawyers to smoothen and accelerate case progression to reach its logical end within the set time frame, with complete demystifi cation of the adjudicatory process ensuing transparency. This would perhaps take us closer to the pursuit of truth and justice. E-governance in judiciary would change the complete system of justice delivery. n


IT Executive: Hi Prof. IT Law! I think I am beginning to get an idea about the challenges of making agreements or contracts over the Internet. Our last session was particularly illuminating! You explained how diffi cult it is for people entering into contracts over the Internet to “know” each other; and how the identity of the parties to a contract was crucial.Prof. IT Law: Yes, and I also showed you that it is easier to remain anonymous in the “real” world than on the Internet; because of electronic trails. IT Executive: Yes. Thanks. What will you teach us today? Prof. IT Law: Today, we will discuss how electronic signatures are used in e-commerce to “authenticate” the parties involved. IT Executive: You mean, to fi nd out whether the person is really who he says he is? Prof. IT Law: Yes, and to ensure payment. IT Executive: That sounds interesting.Prof. IT Law: In the “real” world, a handwritten signature has sanctity for various reasons. Can you tell me one such reason?IT Executive: Because each signature is unique? Prof. IT Law: You are right! No two signatures are alike. And therefore a signature is accepted as authentic and reliable. But it is also important to fi nd out the “identity” of

the person who is signing. And that is done by asking for proof of identifi cation. IT Executive: Using a PAN card or a driving license or passport? Prof. IT Law: That’s right. And there are other reasons why a signature is seen as reliable. One such reason is that a signature is linked to the person who affi xes it. No other can sign in the same way. IT Executive: Except an expert forger, I guess. Prof. IT Law: That’s right. And the signature is also affi xed to the document inextricably. Moreover, any alteration can be detected. IT Executive: So a signature is seen as reliable because, it is unique, linked to the signatory, affi xed to the document, and allows alterations to be easily detected? Prof. IT Law: You have summarized all the four reasons perfectly. Now let us compare “real” world “handwritten” signatures with electronic signatures used in electronic commerce. IT Executive: I suppose the same four criteria should be fulfi lled for an electronic signature to be valid. Prof. IT Law: Exactly. An electronic signature must be unique, linked to the signatory or owner of the signature, affi xed in some way, and should allow alterations to be detected.

IT Executive: I can see what you are getting at. Yes, each electronic signature is unique; and belongs exclusively to the owner or signatory. Like a password. Prof. IT Law: Absolutely. Therefore passwords, PIN’s and the like are electronic signatures. They fulfi ll all the four criteria, as you can readily see. IT Executive: We use electronic signatures all the time with our credit cards, debit cards, PC access, and so on! Prof. IT Law: Yes, and often without realizing that you have used an “electronic” signature! IT Executive: What about digital signatures? Prof. IT Law: Digital signatures are also “electronic” signatures. But they are technology specifi c. Whereas the broader category of “electronic” signatures include password, PIN’s and the like. IT Executive: Please tell me more about digital signatures. Prof. IT Law: Surely. We will discuss digital signatures in our next session. IT Executive: Thank you. I do appreciate how you are unfolding a complex subject such as technology law in a simple way that people like me can understand. I look forward to meeting you again soon.Prof. IT Law: Same here. See you soon. n

IT Act 2000 »

Prof. IT Law in Conversation with Mr. IT Executive: Issue No. 6

Security Corner Mr. Subramaniam VuthaAdvocateEmail: [email protected]

of services across globe. New technology such as cloud computing, personalization, business analytics and reporting are making services more user-friendly. Wide diff usion of smart devices such as mobiles, pads has enabled to provide service 24×7. These new technologies are permitting smooth change management.

Outsourcing of SSGlobal competitions, shrinking skilled workforce, maturing economies, regulatory demands, improved IT infrastructure, and cost pressure has created need for outsourcing of shared services[1,5]. However, some are in favor whereas others are in opposition.

Usually, global organizations prefer outsourcing of SS, whereas regional organizations have an opinion of in-house

running of SS. Though, outsourcing has advantages of cost cutting and use of industry best practices, it will always remain point of interest for political discussions.

ConclusionShared services are becoming an integral part of organizations. Finance, Human resources, and Information technology are the key functions sharing highest number of services under shared services model. SS have been adopted since the 1980s, but implementation rate has increased in last two years primarily because of cost pressures. Adoption of SS is necessary for organizational leadership, while designing and making it successful will remain a challenge for HR managers.

References[1] Bergeron, B (2003). Essential of shared

services. John Wiley & Sons.[2] Colman, R (2006). “Shared services

Journey”. CMA Management, 30-31.[3] Davis, T R (2005). “Integrating shared

services with the strategy and operations of MNEs”. Journal of General Management,31(2), 1-17.

[4] Deloitte. (2011). Global Shared Services Survey.

[5] Klender, M, et al. (2009). “Taking shared services to the next level”. Deloitte Consulting LLP.

[6] Sako, M (2010). “Technology strategy and management outsourcing versus shared services”., Communications of the ACM,53(7), 27-29.

[7] Ulrich, D (1995). “Shared services: from vogue to value”. Human Resources Planning, 18(3), 12-23. n

Dr. Manish Godse works as Research Analyst in Infosys Limited for innovation and new products initiatives. He has two decades of experience, which spans as Business Leader, Entrepreneur, and Academician. His functional experience is focused on strategic partnership development, customer relationship management, pre-sales and product management. Manish holds PhD in Management from SJM School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

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It used to be very interesting, with lot of challenge, to use the computers in 1960s and 1970s. One such computer was the Ferranti SIRIUS Digital Computer procured by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) in 1964 under a special international grant. The computer was built by Ferranti (later on called as ICT) in England in early 60s. I have been lucky that Dr. Neelakantan, Director NAL and Dr. S Krishnan, Head of the Department of Data Handling System, identifi ed me to undergo training on this computer and be in charge of it later on. I am really proud to jot in a few lines about this computer because many computer scientists, engineers, and users might not have had the opportunity to have come across the unique architecture of this system.

Logic ElementsSIRIUS was one of the earliest systems built making use of transistors. I call the architecture as unique because the core logic elements were called as Neurons. A typical neuron was built employing the principle of a magnetic amplifier comprising a toroidal core with hysteresis. Various logical functions were achieved by linearly adding the input signals on independent windings at the input side of the magnet and generating an output signal on the output winding, if the sum exceeded a fixed threshold, defined by the saturation property of the magnetic core. By controlling the polarity of the input signals the basic logic functions like AND, OR, and NOT were produced. Interest in Neuron was so high that the team in Ferranti decided to build a small machine to test it, called Newt. This test bed led to the building of SIRIUS. SIRIUS was announced on 19th May, 1959 with claims that it would be the smallest and most economically priced computer in the European market. Sirius was marketed in England for £20,000, a deal compared to its competitors, the Elliot 803 at £35,000, and theICT301 at £120,000 pounds. About 20 machines were produced by Ferranti, one such was bought by NAL and installed in 1964.

SIRIUS - How it Looks

A picture of SIRIUS is shown above. One attractive feature was, it was based on decimal numbers, each digit represented by four bits. System consisted of eight accumulators and each one of them could hold ten decimal digits (40 bits each). As could be seen from fi gure, there were two rows of illuminated numeric digits each row depicting a 10-digit number. (LED’s were yet to be born at that time. So each decimal digit was carved on a perspex sheet and illuminated by individual miniature incandescent bulbs!!) The top row represented the current instruction and the bottom row could display the contents of any selected accumulator. Set of six displays on the right side of the panel indicated the system status and the bottom two displays represented power on/off .

Numbers were stored as a string of ten decimal digits in one of eight accumulators, along with a parity bit. The computer words could also be used to store half of a double-length number, or fi ve characters. The operator console was a very handy one (Fig. 1) - it consisted of three sections of buttons. A single column on the left was used to select an accumulator to input the ten-digit value. There was a row of command keys on the right. You could select any accumulator by hitting one of the left most section and select the contents to be loaded into that accumulator by pressing the appropriate columns in the next section consisting of 10 columns and 10 rows. The third one the right most section of the operator panel were command keys. The system had the facility to run at a lower speed!! The facilities on the front panel, operator’s

console, and the fl exible adjustment of speed of operation were really a boon to program developers and the system manager.

General FeaturesCan you guess the clock speed of the system? It was just 500KHz. As each digit was stored as four bits, operational cycle for each word of 40 bits was 80 microseconds! Addition and subtraction took 240 microseconds and the overall processing speed was 4Koperations/second. Average time taken for multiplication and division was 8 milliseconds.

SIRIUS deployed single address instruction set (in a single decimal digit of a word). The fi elds of an instruction are structured as 6-digit address, 2-digit opcode, and 1-digit representing one of the registers A or B. B acts as the index register. Sirius used decimals for storage and so the system off ered a number of instructions that quickly multiplied the input or output by 10, by shifting the numbers in the accumulators. For easy programming, a type of high-level language used in SIRIUS was called Autocode, where the variables are represented by the letter ‘v’ and the integers are by the letter ‘n’.

Memory, Input, and Output UnitsIn today’s parlance the memory used in SIRIUS may be viewed as an outdated technology. It was a torsional Acoustic Nickel delay line memory hosed with its electronics a tray as shown in Fig. 2. Each tray could hold 1000 words - NAL had four trays and so the total memory capacity of NAL computer was just 4000 words!!

Fig. 2: Acousti c Delay Line Memory

IT.Yesterday() Dr. R SrinivasanDean R&D, RNS Institute of Technology, Bangalore

Ferranti (ICT) SIRIUS Computer at NAL, Bangalore (1963-1970)


The medium to input and out data in SIRIUS was the paper tape as shown below.

There were two types available: 5-hole tape and 7-hole tape. Data was represented by one character each across the width of the tape. Presence of hole represented logic 1 and absence of hole stood for logic 0. The input unit to read the tape was a photo-electric tape reader as shown below:

While reading, the tape would be moved one character position at a time at the rate 300 Charaters per second. A special incandescent bulb with linear fi lament illuminated the tape at each character position and the status of the holes are read accordingly and the optical output was converted to electrical signals by the electronics of the tape reader. The paper tape was made out of vegetable parchment paper. The paper tape and the special illuminating lamps had to be

imported!! Later on we could discover and use car head light lamps operating at 12V,1A!!

The output unit was a teletype punch (shown below) that would take the control circuit which could convert the digital output and punch it on the paper tape. We had to use an imported Creed ASR 33, a 75 baud, Teleprinter (shown below) to get the textual print out of the tape. After a year of experience and understanding we could design driver circuit for the Hindustan Teleprinter, made in India and save the valuable foreign exchange.

Paper-tape punch (output unit)

The creed teleprinter

Noteworthy Happenings:• Because SIRIUS at NAL was the only Computer available for the public, the user community consisted of not only Scientists from NAL but also from Indian Instititute of Science (IISc), DRDO labs, and public sector organizations. To mention the names of few users who became celebrities in future are Dr. Seshagiri, Dr. N Ramani, Dr. Venkatraman, Dr. Rajaiah, all from IISc. Even today Dr. Seshagiri mentions that he could not forget the days

that he enjoyed using SIRIUS. It could enable solving many problems through programming in Autocode in their Ph.D dissertation work. • The system was very sensitive to power fl uctuations. (In 60s it was not bad as we have today). But one day it was so bad that I had to turn off the system for the day and informed the Electrical Section people in NAL about it. Next day when I switched on the system it was behaving funny and looked mad!! I was scratching my head and fi nally discovered that, in order to help us, the Electrical Section people had connected a constant voltage transformer (CVT) as the input power supply to the computer. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize that the CVT produces a large amount of harmonics, which the system could not tolerate. Once I removed it and connected the system to direct AC supply, everything was fi ne.• As the years passed the reliability of the system was becoming poor. One vulnerable point in the design was the use of three bias voltages 1.2V, 2.4V, and 3.6V, derived from a 9Volts power supply, using three potentiometers by potential division. Any minor drift in any one of these biases aff ected the performance of the system. When the users complained to me that the system is not functioning properly what I had to do was to just adjust the potentiometers to get the bias reset in just a minute which made the users wonder how good I am and conversant with the system!!• Final one to mention on the lighter side is about the electric clock on the front panel shown in Fig. 1. Every morning, after switching on the system, I used to adjust the time of the clock as per my wrist watch. There was so much of admiration for digital computer in those days, people who visited our NAL computer center adjusted their wrist watch as per the clock on the computer’s panel, assuming that the time is also maintained and controlled by the computer - but they did not know that they are adjusting my wrist watch time!!• I was so attached to the SIRIUS that when the curtains were down and the system was loaded in a truck to be dispatched, tears gathered in my eyes just like a mahout feels when his elephant dies.

Bibliography[1] http://www.en.wikipedia.org /wiki/

Ferranti_Sirius[2] archive.computerhistory.org/resources/

text/Ferranti.Sirius.1961.10264236.pdf[3] I n f o t e c h . m o n a s h . e d u . a u /a b o u t /

projectmuseum/papers/first-computer-at-monash-university-v4.pdf

[4] http://www.ourcomputerheritage.org/ccs-f32.pdf

[5] Personal archives of the author n

Dr. R Srinivasan is a Fellow of CSI and was the President of CSI. He retired from NAL in 1995, taking VRS. He is currently Dean Research and PG Studies in RNS Institute of Technology, Bangalore.

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CLUES

Brain Teaser Dr. Debasish JanaEditor, CSI Communications

Crossword »Test your Knowledge on IT Applications Solution to the crossword with name of fi rst all correct solution provider(s) will appear in the next issue. Send your answers to CSI Communications at email address [email protected] with subject: Crossword Solution - CSIC September 2012

ACROSS4. A declarative access control policy language implemented in XML (5)7. An object oriented language (9)8. A web server to support embedded systems (9)9. Acronym for asynchronous javascript and XML (4)16. Program that translates high level language to machine language (8)17. A vendor of enterprise resource planning software (3)18. A database engine (5)19. An interpreted general purpose programming language (6)20. A business management software category for enterprise resource

planning (3)22. A cross platform software package for numerical computation (6)25. A computational software program widely used in engineering,

scientifi c and mathematical community (11)28. A business intelligence application (7,7)29. A concurrent programming language (2)30. A popular spreadsheet application software (5)31. A model for representing objects in HTML (3)32. A rapid web application development platform (10)

DOWN1. A microkernel based distributed operating system (6)2. A software category for handling customer relationship management

(3)3. Tool to fi x a fi le being stored scattered across the diff erent locations in

disk (6)5. A framework for building mobile, web and desktop applications (4)6. A scripting language (10)10. Java based web application server (5)11. Python based web application server (4)12. A high level programming language (7)13. An application server for Java EE platform (9)14. A vendor of enterprise resource planning software (4)15. A vendor of enterprise data integration software (11)21. Main programming language for OS X and iOS (10)23. Allows a program and all its modifi ed and extended versions to be

free (8)24. A popular computing environment for symbolic and numerical

computation (6)26. A database engine (5)27. A software package for business analytics (6)

Solution to August 2012 crossword

Congratulations to Ms. P. Deepa (Panimalar Engineering College, Chennai) and

Mr. Surendra K Khatri (New Delhi) for getting ALMOST ALL correct answers to August month’s crossword.

Do you know?

In early days, computers did not store programs. Also, early computing instruments had fixed programs. As an analogy, you may think of a calculator that is fixed program computer. In early days, when programs were not stored, re-programming required re-wiring, re-structuring, or even re-designing the machine itself. John von Neumann, a pioneer polymath with Hungarian-American background made major contributions to stored program concept, along thoughts of Alan Turing, proposed that programs can reside together with data, in the computer memory. Thus, although conceptually programs and data are different, but memory stores them in same place together and when treated by the program knows what is program and what data is.

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CSI Communications | September 2012 | 36 www.csi-india.orgCCSCSCSIII CoCCommm ununiiccaations | September 2012 | 36 www.csi-india.orgg

Ask an Expert Dr. Debasish JanaEditor, CSI Communications

Your Question, Our Answer“Pay no attention to what the critics say; No statue has ever been erected in honor of a critic.

~ John Sibelius

Subject: Object Oriented Programming using C++

Sir, I am a fi nal year student of MTCT at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. I have few doubts in Object Oriented Programming concepts in general with emphasis on C++. If you could help me with the answers with some example(s), then it would be very helpful. Also, if possible, please provide some real-life examples.

(1) Shallow copy and deep copy (concept and example)(2) Stack IS-A or HAS-A relationship with Array (concept and

example)(3) Dangling Pointer in C/C++ (concept and example)

Palash DuttaStudent,

MTech (Computer Technology) Final year Jadavpur University, Kolkata

A Here are the answers to your questions: 1) Whenever you copy or clone an object (typically through copy constructor or assignment operator in C++), the decision lies on the provider of the copy logic that how much to clone. Shallow copies clone as less as possible, confi ned to copying only at fi rst level of a hierarchy. A shallow copy of a tree-like structure is a copy of the entire structure, not just the fi rst-level elements. With a shallow copy, two structures share the fi rst level of individual elements. Deep copies duplicate everything. In a deep copy between two objects, each and every element in the nested structure gets copied with no sharing between these two. Suppose you have a class X and Y as follows:

class Y {

...

};

class X {

Y * py;

public:

X(const X& src);

};

// deep copy (copy deepest level possible)

X::X(const X& src) {

this->py = (Y *) NULL;

if (src.py)

this->py = new Y(*(src.py));

}

// shallow copy (copy just one layer)

X::X(const X& src) {

this->py = src.py;

}

2) Containership is HAS-A relationship, like Y has-a X, Y is a container, X is a content, like say, a polygon has corner points (containership) but inheritance depicts IS-A relationship, where a subclass specializes a superclass, e.g. a student is-a person, so, Person can be a superclass, and Student class is a subclass of Person class. In case of Array and Stack relationship, Array provides a contiguous storage of homogeneous elements of certain dimension of fi xed length. Another behavioral aspect of Array is that arrays are random access in the sense that Array class may have a public operator [] (in C++) or getItem(int indx) (in Java) to access any of the elements within the Array object. If we analyze requirements of Stack class, stack is also a homogeneous contiguous storage of elements with the elements accessed in Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) manner. So, Stacks are not random access, i.e. any element from within a stack is not accessible, except the last one that was inserted. Thus, it is safer bet for designing Stack has-a Array (in containership model). And, if we design Stack is-a Array, then, by virtue of inheritance, the random access behavioral aspect gets inherited in Stack, as such, we may start accessing stack elements too passing the desired index. This is a violation of stack behavior. So, inheritance model is not applicable. However, in C++, there is a concept of private inheritance, where Stack can privately inherit from Array. Thus, all public functions of Array become privately accessible within Stack class, and outsiders of Stack class cannot access the random access index operator or getItem of Array class. And you are safe.

3) A dangling pointer means the pointer has some value but the value is not address of any valid element. This means the element might have been freed earlier (i.e. lifetime is over) or the pointer contains a garbage (because of being uninitialized, may be). This situation may occur while returning address of a local automatic variable from a function so that when you come out of the function the local variable ceases to exist or using the address of an element after it is freed. The following code snippet explains this:

int main() {

int *p;//uninitialized, contains garbage

*p = 10; // unsafe, dangling

p = new int;

*p = 10; //safe

delete p; // p is freed

*p = 10; // unsafe, dangling!

}

Hope that answers your doubts.

Send your questions to CSI Communications with subject line ‘Ask an Expert’ at email address [email protected]


Happenings@ICT H R MohanAVP (Systems), The Hindu, ChennaiEmail: [email protected]

ICT News Briefs in August 2012The following are the ICT news and headlines of interest in August 2012. They have been compiled from various news & Internet sources including the fi nancial dailies - The Hindu, Business Line, Economic Times.

Voices & Views• E-commerce sales grew to Rs. 46,520 crore

in 2011 as against Rs. 31,600 crore previous year - IMAI.

• Attrition rate has fallen in IT, ITeS, & BPO sector to 15-20% during the last six months as against 55-60% in the year-ago - Assocham.

• Social media users to boost domestic e-commerce market - IMAI.

• India, last choice as data center hub. Ranked 29th in the 30 country “Data Center Risk index”, a new indexing started by Cushman and Wakefi eld. US ranks 1st and followed by UK.

• Around 55% of young workforce in IT/ITeS are stricken with lifestyle disorders due to unhealthy eating habits, hectic work schedules, tight deadlines, and irregular and associated stress - Assocham.

• Global spend on IT outsourcing services to reach $252 billion in 2012 - Gartner.

• Cyber attack “Gauss” targets fi nancial info of users.

• Verizon says 98% of threat to corporate data is external.

• Mobile commerce catching up in non-urban areas. The ratio between rural and urban buyers would be 1:10 right now but may go up to 6:10 over next two years - eBay.

• London Olympics, 2012, is being termed as the fi rst ever ‘Socio-Olympics’.

• More women book tickets online - Survey by goibibo.com.

• Indian app software market will cross $227 million in 2012, a 22.6% rise over 2011 - Gartner.

• Cloud, mobile, social media to drive businesses - Vishwanath Alluri, CEO, IMImobile.

• Globally, the information stored by all businesses is said to be 2.2 zettabytes and SMBs on an average have 563 terabytes of data - Symantec.

• Cloud computing market may grow 70% this year to $909 million - IDC.

• Indian smartphone users spend over 157 minutes daily on the mobile web - Nielsen.

• Operating costs for MNCs’ research centers operating in India fall 6% in FY12 and resulted in savings of $70 billion in the last fi ve years - Zinnaov.

• 75% of rural users use Internet for entertainment - study by IMAI & IMRB.

Telecom, Govt, Policy, Compliance• The Govt. will not censor or manage Internet

content - Kapil Sibal.

• Mobile Banking Security Lab launched at Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology, Hyderabad.

• TRAI to ask for import ban on phones with fake IMEI.

• Times Internet to conduct spectrum auction process.

• Competition panel investigating Google’s anti-competitive practices.

• Telcos may have to procure SIM cards, broadband modems, and 16 other items from local manufacturers starting April 2013.

• July mobile subscriber addition (1.7 million users) lowest since 2005.

• BSNL loss stood at Rs. 8,851 crore during last fi scal - Govt.

• Govt. bans bulk SMSes to stem riot fears. Lifts it on 30th Aug.

• MAIT pleads for easier e-waste disposal rules.

• Asia gets fastest (40 gigabits per second) undersea data cable system.

• Mobile operators comply with new radiation norms from September 1.

• Govt. working with social media to prevent misuse of technology - Sibal.

• Govt. issues norms for e-governance, departments using social media.

• $2-billion Govt. fund proposed for electronics development.

• 2G: SC rejects petitions for CBI probe into Chidambaram role.

• IT hardware companies to get 10% subsidy for upgradation in AP.

• Supreme Court extends deadline for spectrum auction till Jan 11, 2013.

IT Manpower, Staffi ng & Top Moves• Study by Naukri.com fi nds dip in hiring

sentiment.• Cisco Systems has given pink slips to 600

of its employees in India as part of its restructuring process.

• Top Indian IT companies plan to hire some 15,000 people for their Chinese operations.

• IT sector begins search for talent beyond engineering and management colleges.

• Online retailer KyaZoonga to hire around 60 people by this year end.

• Web hosting and domain name provider Go Daddy.com to recruit 60 in Hyderabad.

• Uninor in talks with telcos for reappointment of its staff who will be retrenched.

• Microsoft India is carrying out a project called Kshamta (capacity), to improve the employability of retired Army jawans and aims to enhance their capacity and competence.

• Jodhpur boy selected among top global computer experts by Google for its ‘Mentor Summit’.

• IT fi rms pick math, stats grads for number crunching.

• Gurnani is new MD for Tech Mahindra.• Motorola Mobility to cut 4,000 jobs

worldwide.• IT fi rms unaff ected as North-East people

fl ee Bangalore.• Kamal Nath to head Sify Tech.• Mahindra Satyam staff to get 7-10% wage

hike.

Company News: Tie-ups, Joint Ventures, New Initiatives• Microsoft launches outlook.com, a web-

based email service.• Fujitsu NEC and NTT Docomo to develop

and sell semiconductors for smartphone data transmissions.

• Dell commits to fund $2.4 million for CSR activities, over and above its spending of $6.5 million in the last few years.

• Airtel ordered to pay Rs. 25,000 for harassing subscriber by demanding fresh documents to verify his six-year-old connection and then stopping outgoing calls.

• Micro Technologies (India) Ltd. introduces Micr CallBlocker which can detect and block unsolicited calls and SMSs.

• Google to shut down Apps for Teams, Listen.

• Cognizant beats Infosys to emerge No. 2 IT fi rm.

• Infosys launches cloud integration software solutions, Cloud Ecosystem Hub.

• Infosys selected for Rs. 700-crore India Post project.

• Google to include people’s Gmail in search results.

• HCL Info bags Rs. 2,000-crore Aadhaar contract.

• Matrix off ers free calls from US, UK.• Google+ off ers custom URLs for verifi ed

accounts.• Tata DoCoMo creates the world’s largest

signage with a built-up area of 30,000 sq.ft. displaying the company’s logo on a hill-side of the Pune-Mumbai Expressway.

• TCS Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) for Rs. 188 crore.

• Infosys wins after a US court threw out a harassment charge fi led by its employee.

• Samsung did not copy iPhone, says S. Korean court.

• Apple wins $1 billion in patent case against Samsung in US.

• An Android app deployed by PharmaSecure to keep tabs on fake medicines.

• Now, charge your phone by simply holding it through a new technology that turns body heat into electricity.

• Teracom launches tablet starting at Rs. 3,999 on MTNL network. n

www.csi-india.orgCSI Communications | September 2012 | 38

On the Shelf!

Book Review »

Professional Python Framework Web 2.0 Programming with Django and Turbogears

Book Title : Professional Python Framework Web 2.0 Programming with Django and Turbogears

Author: : Dana Moore, Raymond Budd, and William Wright

ISBN : ISBN 10:81-265-1490-6

13:978-81-265-1490-8

Printed Pages : 420

Price : Rs. 429.00 US edition Rs. 1800/-

Publisher : WROX, a Branded Imprint of Wiley Publishers

Dr. Suneeta SaneProfessor and Head (MCA), Computer Technology Department,Dean, Research and Development, VJTI, Mumbai

The name suggests that the book is essentially for professionals who are involved in developing website development applications. It discusses two new standard frameworks like: Django and Turbogears for developers. The book is organized in four parts: Introduction to Python Frameworks, Turbogears, Django, and Advanced Client-side Topics. Part one provides a brief history of application developing on desktop to Web 2.0. An overview of various tools like J2EEE, AJAX, DSL, Python, Django, TurboGears, and Javascript along with their strengths and limitations. It specifi es how working of Web 2.0 with Python with Framework and without Framework changes the development process of applications. A detailed discussion on Frameworks is given along with extensive examples for development.

Part two is based on Turbogears. Introduction states in-depth exposure to this new most complete development tool. It introduces the concept of HTML templates and template engines. With strong library support the user management and user tracking is easier in Turbogears. Widget is a key component of Turbogears with CSS and Javascript providing good functionality. Advanced features are discussed to explain the other things which one might use in the development.

Part three deals with the Django which automates the production of common web development. Developers with experience in development in Javascript and Python will fi nd it a delight to work with Django and will fi nd the ease of application development an enjoyable experience. Both Django and Turbogears support MVC, however, both deal with this diff erently. User management functions are built in Django and have been explained with examples for the user benefi t. Django is also very strong in content management. This is illustrated in this part.

Part four is devoted for the advanced application development with special emphasis on the client-side development. It specially mentions about the MochiKit-Pythonic Javascripting. It details development using various technologies like Flash, Flex2, and Action script open source wrapper.

The book has interviews of Kevin Dangoor, creator of Turbogears and also that of Adrian Holovaty, original lead developer of Django making more interesting reading. It is interesting to understand the philosophy of the creator, which makes the book more readable for people working in the academia and Web Technology Development. n

Heartiest Congratulations!It is a great pleasure to inform that the IEEE Board of Directors selected Dr. F C Kohli, Founder Member of CSI, to receive the 2012 IEEE Founders Medal, which is given for outstanding contributions in the leadership, planning, and administration of aff airs of great value to the electrical and electronics engineering profession.

The award comes with the following citation: “For early vision and pioneering contributions to the development of the IT industry in India.”

Congratulations to Dr. Kohli on his achievement and for being part of a select group of researchers, inventors, innovators, and practitioners whose exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions have made a lasting impact on technology, society, and the engineering profession.

It is an extremely proud moment for the entire CSI fraternity.


CSI Report Anirban Basu PhD (Comp Sc) Research Professor and Consultant

Cloud computing is believed to be the new wave which will dominate the computing world. While Cloud Computing off ers lot of advantages, there are still a number of challenges before it gets wider acceptance and public clouds gain widespread use.

Considering the importance of Cloud Computing in the days to come, Bangalore Chapter of Computer Society of India, in association with CSI Division 1 and Division 4 launched the conference series on Advances in Cloud Computing (ACC 2012) on 27th July, 2012 to provide an international forum for researchers, professionals, and industrial practitioners to share their knowledge in the rapidly growing area of Cloud Computing. The Conference held in Hotel LaLiT Ashok, Bangalore during July 26-28, 2012 received very good response from the industry and academia with several professional organizations supporting this event, which included IEEE-Bangalore Section, The Institution of Engineers(India), IETE, IET, ISACA Bangalore Chapter, FKCCI, ISTE, OMG and others. The conference was supported by leading organizations, which included Department of Science and Technology (Government of India), STPI, ISRO, Tally Solutions, VMware, EMC, CDAC, MindTree, NIIT, Dell, Huawei, Accenture, SAIL among others.

Sri. M N Vidyashankar, Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Government of Karnataka, was the Chief Guest in the Inaugural function of ACC 2012, Prof. S Sadagopan, Director, IIITB and Sri. J Parthasarathy, Director, STPI Bangalore and Chennai were the Guests of Honor. Sri. Vishwas Bondade, Chairman of Computer Society of India-Bangalore Chapter, welcomed the august gathering and Prof. (Dr.) Anirban Basu, Past Chairman of CSI Bangalore Chapter and Event Chair of ACC 2012 gave an overview of the program.

The conference started on 27th July and was preceded by 4 Tutorials held on 26th July on topics of great interest and relevance. The Tutorials included: • Cloud Computing and Aneka Platform by Prof. Raj Buyya, University of Melbourne, Australia • Cloud Resource Orchestration by Dr. Rajiv Ranjan , CSIRO, Australia• Open Platforms for HPC and Scientifi c Cloud by CDAC team led by Dr. Prahlad Rao• Using Cloud for (improving) software testing by Dr. Prakash Mutalik

The Tutorials were very well attended and provided a good forum for interactions and learning.

The conference ACC 2012 had a very interesting program with a good mix of Theory and Practice. Call for Papers was released last year and received a good response. All papers were reviewed by an International Team of Reviewers under the leadership of Prof. Raj Buyya (Hony Conf. Chair) and Dr. Rajiv Ranjan (Program Chair).

The Conference had invited speakers from academia and industry to help professionals learn about challenges in Cloud Computing. A number of renowned experts from all over the world participated and delivered Invited Talks and shared their expertise.

Prof. (Dr.) Raj Kumar Buyya, Professor and Director, University of Melbourne, Australia delivered a Talk on "Market-Oriented Cloud Computing: Challenges and Opportunities". Dr. Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, Director, CSIRO, Australia delivered an Invited Talk on "Media Wise - Designing a Smart Media Cloud", Prof. (Dr.) Sikharesh Majumdar, Professor and Director, Carleton University, Canada spoke on "Resource Management on Clouds: the Multifaceted Problem and Solutions", Prof. (Dr.) Chen Khong Tham, Associate Professor, National University of Singapore delivered a Talk on "People-centred Cloud Service Aggregation and Exchange". Prof. (Dr.) Sanjay Madria, Missouri University of Science and Technology, US shared his expertise on "Trust in Cloud Infrastructure and Security in Sensor Cloud Computing", Dr. Arkady Zaslavsky, CSIRO, Australia delivered Talk on "Sensing-as-a-service and big data".

Technical leaders from the industry who shared their expertise included:• Tarun Sareen, Sr. Director, EMC Corporation who delivered an Invited Talk on “Winning The Business With Cloud & Big Data”• Dr. Sudhir Dixit, Director, HP Labs India shared his thoughts on "Peering Into the Future of Cloud Computing and Services"• Rajesh Nair, VMware delivered a Talk on “Software Defi ned Datacenters”• Sunil Gupta, of Tally Solutions spoke on “The Golden Hammer - What it will take to make the Cloud a Swiss Knife"• P Sundar Varadaraj, Director, Technology and Innovation Center, Dell delivered an Invited Talk on "The Art and Science of making the Cloud work"

• Vishal Sharma, Director, Deloitte Consulting India shared his views on “Business benefi ts of cloud computing - Looking beyond technology”• Vamsicharan Mudiam, Country Executive - Cloud Computing, IBM delivered an Invited Talk on "SmartCloud: Rethink IT. Rethink Business"• Raja Bavani, Chief Architect, MindTree shared his thoughts on "Think Agile to Succeed in Cloud Computing Projects"• Hari Vasudev, Vice President, Yahoo spoke on "The Intersection of Cloud Computing and Big Data"• Bimal Shah, Head-Architecture, iON, TCS delivered a Talk on "Future of inventions in cloud computing"• (Dr.) Sarat Chandra Babu, Executive Director, CDAC spoke on "Cloud Security"• Bijoy Das, NIIT enlightened on their work on Cloud Computing Education• Yathish L N, Chief Architect, Huawei Technologies shared his expertise on "How to enable operators to take full advantage of Telecom Cloud"• Nilesh Naker, Associate Director, Ernst and Young delivered a Talk on "Cloud Computing Adoption in India - A Practitioner's View"• Sanjeev Mehta, VP, SAP delivered an Invited Talk on "SAP Business ByDesign - next Generation Cloud Suite for Medium Enterprises"• Pamela Kumar, Member of IEEE SA Board of Governors shared her views on "Intercloud Interoperability"• Raghavan Subramanian of Infosys delivered a Talk on "Can Cloud Computing disrupt incumbent IT"

There was a Panel Discussion moderated by Past CSI President Lalit Sawhney on Challenges to Cloud Adoption. The panelists included reputed CXOs: Sayeed Anjum (Greytip), Rakesh Kumar (Unilever), Antra Bhargava (Grant Thornton, Ireland), M G Raghuraman (Mphasis), Ravi Eppaturi (Mphasis), and V V Padmanabhan (Britannia).

The Conference concluded with a Valedictory Session chaired by Padma Bhusan Prof. V Rajaraman, former President of CSI and Ex Chairman of SERC, IISc, and considered Father of Indian Computing.

Papers selected after careful scrutiny and the talks were compiled by the Editors: Rajiv Ranjan, Raj Buyya, and Anirban Basu and brought out in the form of proceedings published by Universities Press. ACC 2012 brought the best possible combination of knowledge from the industry and academics and participants felt that the deliberations of ACC 2012 will help in enhancing the expertise of both IT professionals and academics in the area of Cloud Computing and shaping Indian software prowess in this emerging field. In his valedictory address Prof. (Dr.) Anirban Basu thanked all the speakers and sponsors for making this a memorable event and setting a benchmark in organizing International Conferences.

n


CSI Journal of Computing |

Contents

Journal of ComputingPublished by the

Computer Society of India

Article Title Page No.

Preface

1 Natural Language Processing: A Computational Perspective in the Presence of Ambiguity, Resource Constraints and MultilingualityPushpak Bhattacharyya

3

2 GPU implementation of a hybrid lattice Boltzmann method for non-isothermal fl owsNachiket Sahasrabudhe, Mahesh Mynam, Ajay Nandgaonkar, Gayathri Jayaraman

14

3 Game Theoretic Strategies for Node Cooperation in Mobile Ad Hoc Wireless Network 22

4 An Evolutionary Clustering Algorithm for Handling Dynamics of User Profi le in Recommender SystemsChhavi Rana, Sanjay Kumar Jain

29

5 Nash Equilibrium in Weighted Concurrent Timed Games with Reachability ObjectivesShankara Narayanan Krishna, Lakshmi Manasa, Ashish Chiplunkar

38

6 Control Dependence Analysis of Software ComponentsRatneshwer Gupta

52

7 An Approach for Improving Quality of Emotion Transformation for HindiAnurag Jain, S. S. Agrawal, Nupur Prakash

60

8 Clustering technique for Interpretation of Cloudburst over LehKavita Pabreja

67

9 Detecting fl aws in dynamic hierarchical key management schemes using specifi cation animationAnil Mundra, Naveen Kumar, Anish Mathuria, Manik Lal Das

74

10 Literacy for All in Parallel and Distributed Computing: Guidelines for an Undergraduate Core CurriculumPrasad, Sushil K., Gupta, Anshul, Kant, Krishna, Lumsdaine, Andrew, Padua, David, Robert, Yves, Rosenberg, Arnold, Sussman, Alan, Weems, Charles

81

Guidelines to Authors 96

1

For accessing the complete paper kindly visit http://www.csijournal.org/view-journal-current-issue.php


Academic Awards 2012Call for Nominations

Computer Society of India has been honoring academic excellence through academic awards every year. The awards are given away at the CSI Annual Convention. For the year 2012, the Convention is being held at Kolkata on 1st and 2nd December. To facilitate the Awards Committee select the fi nal awardees, nominations are called for the following awards:

To be eligible for the Award, the awardees should be CSI members. Also, wherever applicable, they should belong to CSI Student Branches in good standing during 2011-12 and 2012-13. Forms for nominations are available at http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/academic-excellence-awards

The forms are to be downloaded and hard copy nominations should reach Education Directorate, through proper channel as specifi ed in the forms, latest by 30th September 2012. Education Directorate will verify membership status, student branch strength, and the extent to which criteria are met. The shortlist of Awardees cleared and recommended by the Education Directorate will be forwarded to CSI Awards Committee headed by Immediate Past President. The decision of the Awards Committee will be fi nal and Awardees will be invited to attend CSI 2012 and receive the prizes.

Regional Vice Presidents, Student Coordinators, and Chapter OBs are requested to give wide publicity and encourage nominations.

For enquiries, please contact [email protected]

Wg. Cdr. M MurugesanDirector (Education)

Computer Society of India,Education Directorate,

CIT Campus, IV Cross Road,Taramani, Chennai - 600 113.

S. No. Name of the Awward Criteria To be Nominated by

1 Best Student Branch Award Good standing - during 2011-12 and currently, large student strength & large number of activities as defi ned in the specifi ed form

Sttududent Branch CCounsellor (SBC)

2 Largest Student Branch Award Continuous good standing for the past 3 years wwith highest 3 years averaged strength

SBC

3 Best Compliance Student Branch Award

Prompt Yearly Report of activities and Acccoountsover past 3 years

SBC

4 Best CSI International Students Event Host Award

Institutional member hosted maximumm students competition participated by minimumm 10 foreign students

SBC

5 Highest Sponsorship of CSI Events Award

Institutional member extending maxaximum support for CSI events during the last year

SBC

6 Longest Continuous SBC Award Longest continuous tenure as SBCC over past 3 years SBC

7 Faculty with maximum publishing - CSI publications

Publishing maximum articles in CSSI publications over past 3 years

Self nomination

8 Paper Presenter at International Conference for Faculty

Presentation of paper at prestigioous International Conferences over past 3 years

Self nomination

9 Student with maximum publishing- CSI publications

Publishing maximum articles in CSSI publications over past 3 years

SBC

10 Highest Committed StudentBranch Activist Award

Most active CSI Student Branch meember over past 3 years

SBC

11 Best Ph.D Thesis Award Active CSI member, who submitted aa high-quality thesis (Thesis quality to be evaluatedd b y a panel of eminent research scientists) leading toto acceptancefor Ph.D degree by a recognized Universisity

Research Scholar who got his/her Ph.D duringthe award year or theresearch supervisor

CSI Communications | September 2012 | 44 www.csi-india.orgCSCSCSI I I CoCoCommmmmmunununiciccattatioionsnss ||| SeSeeptptptememembebeb rrr 2 2010101222 ||| 444444 wwwwwww.w.w.cscscsi-ii-ininindididiaa.a.orororggggg

CSI News

From CSI Chapters »Please check detailed news at: http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chapternews-September2012

SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GISTBHOPAL (REGION III)Prof. Manish Parashar, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutger’s University, New Jersey

14 August 2012: Lecture on “Current Trends and Challenges in Cloud Computing”Prof. Manish Parashar spoke about the cloud usage and related challenges with specifi c focus on security issues in the context of cloud usage.

During the lecture

SURAT (REGION III)Prof. Prabhat Ranjan 21 July 2012: Seminar on “Brain-Computer Interface to Help Persons with

Severe Disability”

Prof. Ranjan is an eminent personality working in the fi eld of applying Brain-Computer Interface, along with body and voice sensors to help persons with severe disability. He is also using embedded systems and sensor networks for planetary exploration (moon mission), wildlife tracking, nuclear fusion, assistive technology and agriculture. Prof. Ranjan covered various technologies that can help diff erently enabled persons based on their specifi c abilities. He illustrated his points by specifi c show case studies which he had already implemented in the fi eld.

Prof. Ranjan while conducti ng Seminar

UDAIPUR (REGION III)Dr. Dharm Singh 22 July 2012: Young Talent Search in Computer Programming - 2012

First level regional contest for Young Talent Search in Computer Programming 2012 was held at Udaipur. Regional centre co-ordinator and Vice Chairman, CSI Udaipur Dr. Dharm Singh guided students about rules and format of the examination and infrastructures facility provided by the Techno NJR campus for the contest. Nine students participated from three diff erent schools from all over Rajasthan.

All Parti cipants along with CSI members Udaipur Chapter

TRIVANDRUM (REGION VII)Mr. Vimal Joseph 28 July 2012: Workshop on “Python Programming”

The workshop was organized in association with The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS). It provided a complete introduction to Python. The content included Syntax and Style, Data Structures, Flow control (loops and conditionals), Files and I/O, Modules, Functions, Errors and Exception Handling in Python. Programming exercises were used to reinforce the learning.

Mr. Vimal Joseph conducti ng the workshop

CSI Communications | September 2012 | 45CSCSCSII I CoCoCommmmmmunununiciccatata ioioi nsnsn ||| SeSeS ptptp ememmbebeberrr 2 2 2010101222 ||| 454545

From Student Branches »http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chapternews-September2012

SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GISTAES INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES (AESICS), AHMEDABAD (REGION-III)Mr. Amal Derasary 7 July 2012: Seminar on “Software Quality Assurance (SQA)” and Career

Opportunities

Mr. Derasary covered various aspects of quality as a critical aspect for success of IT projects. He explained diff erent types of testing, software testing life cycle, software testing tools, test automation, and recent trends in testing. He discussed real-life case studies to explain the importance of software quality that is delivered to customers by IT projects. He also explained how to develop career in SQA, career opportunities available, and the career growth paths off ered by the IT industry.

Mr. Amal Derasary addressing students during the seminar

Mrs. Trushali Jambudi 7 July 2012: Workshop on “jQuery”

This workshop provided practical exposure to students in creating an interactive and animated web page/web site content using jQuery, which renders the same look and feel on diff erent browsers. jQuery features like retrieving and manipulating page content, events, animations and eff ects were covered in the workshop. The participants were given hands-on exposure for the features covered in the workshop.

Mrs. Trushali Jambudi, delivering a lecture on jQuery during the workshop

Mr. Pinakin Patel, Mr. Jignesh Shah, and Mr. Bipin Mehta 9 July 2012: Network Design Competition-2012

Objective was to provide a platform for IT students to apply their network design and management skills to solve real life problem. The contest provided problem scenario for designing wired and wireless network for the new building in the University campus. The network design proposals submitted by 8 teams covered details like network design and topology, network components confi guration, network protocols and IP addressing, hardware and software confi guration for client and servers and solution for network security issues. First and second winners of the competition were provided prizes.

Mr. Bipin Mehta, Mr. Aditya Patel and the judges with the winners of the competi ti on

Mr. Hiren Solanki, Mr. Jaymin Shah, and Mr. Pratik Patel 28 July 2012: Workshop on “Web Developing and Hosting with PHP”

The topics covered during the workshop included Basic Concepts of PHP, Advance PHP, MySQL for database connectivity, Hosting and managing the web site. The participants were trained to create web pages using the forms, conditional statements, loop control structures, get and post methods, Cookies, and session maintenance and MySQL database. They were given online demo of all the concepts discussed.

During the workshop


SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GISTSILICON INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, SILICON HILLS, BHUBANESWAR (REGION-IV)Prof. A K Tripathy, Prof. L N Bhuyan, Prof. S P Mishra, Prof. Chitta Ranjan Das, and Prof. Sk. Kamaruddin

2-3 July 2012: Two-day National Seminar on "Application Oriented Networking (NSAON-2012)”

Prof. Bhuyan started with introduction from fundamental concepts to internetworking and importance of network packet processing at the processor level. He also talked on “Internetworking” with presentation of interconnection within modern day computers, details of Network processors architecture, its applications and his research work in design and evaluation of low power network processors. While talking about “Effi cient Scheduling of Network Applications”, he presented diff erent scheduling approaches for network applications. Prof. Das spoke about “Networking in the Context of Cloud Computing”, basics of cloud computing, and concluded with research avenues in this area. Prof. Bhuyan later talked about “Scheduling for Power and Energy Savings” and discussed power and energy optimization on multicore servers.

During the inaugural session of NSAON - 2012, the dignitaries present on the dais Prof. A K Tripathy, Prof. L N Bhuyan, Prof. S P Mishra, and Prof. Sk. Kamaruddin

DADI INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY (DIET), VISAKHAPATNAM (REGION-V)Mr. Lav Agarwal, A P Choudhary, Dadi Veerabhadra Rao, P Madhusudan, Suman Das, J V Rao, Prof. P S Avadhani, Paramata Satyanarayana, Yarlagadda Laxmi Prasad, and T K Chand

3-4 August 2012: Two-day AP State Level Student Convention- 2012

Mr. Agrawal said students need to remain committed to upgrade knowledge and work for the success of applying technology to make life more productive. Prof. P S Avadhani said, today’s students are solutions to present and future challenges and every engineering student should harbor an intent to add value to existing knowledge and work to create or improve one stream of technology or an application that can make the common citizen’s life simpler and easy. Mr. T K Chand told students that, basic creativity and innovation are not enough. One should also strive to take them to the world. If you have an idea, think how strong it is and what changes can it bring about.

Address by Chief Guest Padmasree Y Lakshmi Prasad

G. PULLA REDDY ENGINEERING COLLEGE, HYDERABAD (REGION-V)Mr. I L Narasimha Rao, K Laxminarayan Raju, and Dr. A Govardhan Garu

8–9 August 2012: A Two-day Regional Level Student convention “Aavishkar-2012”

I L Narasimha Rao delivered inaugural address on the topic “Indians can do better if they organized well”. K Laxminarayan Raju, delivered address on the topic “Communication skills play important role in industry”. Total of 175 technical papers were received from students of various Engineering Colleges for Paper Presentation Contest on the topics such as Cloud Computing, Green Computing, Mobile Adhoc Networks, Soft Computing, and Intelligent Infrastructure Technologies and 21 papers were selected for presentation. In addition to this Technical Quiz, Software Contest, and Poster Presentation were also conducted.

L to R: Dr. B Sreenivasa Reddy, Sri. K Laxminarayan Raju, Sri. I L Narasimha Rao, Dr. N Kasiviswanath, and Dr. R Praveen Sam

PRAKASAM ENGINEERING COLLEGE (PEC), AP (REGION-V)Dr. P Trimurthy 8–9 August 2012: National level Techno Cultural Festival “ISKRA 2K12”

Fest involved a variety of events such as Paper Presentations, Technical Quiz Programs, Technical Poster Presentations etc. Dr. P Trimurthy, Former President of CSI, Chief guest ISKRA 2K12, addressed the gathering during valedictory function.

L to R: Dr. P Trimurthy, Dr. Kancharla Ramaiah, Mr. I V Subbarao, Mr. G Ayyanna, Prof. N Renukachari, and Dr. M Lakshmana Rao

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CSI Communications | September 2012 | 47CSCSCSCSCSIII I I CoCoCoCoCommmmmmmmmununununu iciciciccatatatatioioioionsnsnsns |||||| SeSeSeSeSeSeeSeptpttptptptptpp emememememmmbebebebebebebebeb rrrrrrr 2 2 22 22 222010101010101010 2222222 |||||||| 474747474747477447

Guidelines for Chapter Elections for Compliance1. Chapter Nominations Committee (NC) will initiate the election process of the respective Managing Committee (MC) as per the CSI Constitution

and Bye-laws. An announcement will appear in CSI Communications/ on CSI website regarding CSI elections for the year 2013-2014/2015 as in the past.

One of the strengths of any professional society is to conduct elections as per schedule.

2. Each chapter is advised to form Chapter MC and NC with proper balance of members. Chapter NC holds responsibility to search and invite suitable members for MC and NC.

While selecting MC and NC members, the current NC members should try to fi nd suitable members representing IT Industry, Academic Institutions, Government Departments, Corporate sector, Consultants etc. In the process, the need to keep experienced members, young members, and women members, to balance the composition of MC and NC, may please be kept in mind.

3. If election is required to be conducted at the chapter level, it must be conducted in all fairness.

4. It is suggested to co-opt one past offi ce bearer of the chapter in the NC team. This is to ensure that there is at least one experienced member to guide the team.

5. The chapter NCs (2012-13) are requested to ensure that the new NC team is cohesive and each member has a commitment towards CSI.

6. In case the Chapter NC/MC needs the help of the National NC, the National NC will be very happy to assist.

Dr. D D Sarma Bipin V Mehta Subimal KunduNominations Committee (2012-13)

SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GISTMANAKULA VINAYAGAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (MVIT), PUDHUCHERRY (REGION-VII)

3-4 August 2012: Two-day workshop on “Android and Its Applications”

The workshop was focused on the application development in Android Platform. It provided hands-on experience to the students in android simulator. The workshop helped the students to develop their own android applications and their knowledge towards current mobile operating systems.

Speaker during the workshop

Following new student branches were opened as detailed below -

REGION VI Datta Meghe College of Engineering (DMCE), Airoli, Navi Mumbai -

-This new student branch was inaugurated on 3rd August, 2012 at the hands of Prof. A P Pande. Chief guest Mr. Abraham Koshi spoke about the historical perspective on the development of the Indian computer technology and gave excellent examples of revolution created by brilliant scientists.

REGION VII Sree Buddha College of Engineering, Pattoor, Kerala -

The CSI Student Branch was inaugurated on 26th July, 2012 followed by a talk on “Personal Eff ectiveness” and awareness program about CSI by Mr. Y Kathiresan, who spoke about the importance of developing personal eff ectiveness in students.

Please send your event news to [email protected] . Low resolution photos and news without gist will not be published. Please send only 1 photo per event, not more. Kindly note that news received on or before 20th of a month will only be considered for publishing

in the CSIC of the following month.


IEEE Computer Society e-membership benefi ts at subsidized rates

CSI and the IEEE Computer Society (CS) signed a renewed and enhanced Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in July 2012. The MoU aims at encouraging the exchange and dissemination of technical information, promoting understanding and cooperation between the members of both societies and encouraging cross-membership.

While the MoU covers several inter-organizational collaborative activities, a signifi cant benefi t for CSI members is the Sister Society Associate programme (at this time, available only to CSI Members globally).

CSI members who join IEEE-CS through this mechanism CSI- SSA program are eligible for:

1. Free access to 3 IEEE CS digital publications: Computer, IEEE Software and IT Pro. These publications contain the most up-to-date and advanced information in the computing world.

2. Subscription to other IEEE CS member optional periodicals at Sister Society rates. 3. IEEE CS Custom Newsletter for SSA Members. 4. Discounts in IEEE CS conferences organized in India.

These benefi ts are available at a discounted rate of US$ 12 for professional members and US$ 10 for student members.

For further details, kindly visit: http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/ieee-cs-ssa-program

Suchit GogwekarExecutive Secretary

Four good reasons to JOINTake part in various forums and discuss,

your favourite topicsMake a contribution on National level through

our open exchange of ideas seminarsShare your specialized knowledge

with colleaguesReceive new information on developments

in the fi eld via regular conferences, seminars, workshops etc.

WE INVITE YOU TO JOINComputer Society of India

A professional body guiding Indian Information Technology

IndustryJoin us

andbecome a member

I am interested in the work of CSI . Please send me information on how to become an individual/institutional* memberName ______________________________________ Position held_______________________ Address______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________City ____________Postal Code _____________Telephone: _______________ Mobile:_______________ Fax:_______________ Email:_______________________ *[Delete whichever is not applicable]Mail this coupon to: Computer Society of India, Unit 3, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, MIDC, Andheri , Mumbai 400 093 URL: http://www.csi-india.org Email: [email protected]

Date Event Details & Organizers Contact Information

September 2012 Events

14-15 Sept. 2012 Kerala State Student ConventionTKM College of Engineering

Dr. Chitraprasad, [email protected]. Muraleedharan Pillai, [email protected]

19-20 Sept. 2012 4th e-Governance Knowledge Sharing Summit (KSS2012)Govt of Chhattisgarh, In association with CSI-SIG-eGOV at Hotel V W Canyon Raipur

Mr. A M Parial, [email protected] Maj. Gen. (Retd) Dr. R K Bagga, [email protected]

27-29 Sept. 2012 Regional Student Convention – Region 6MGM's Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College, N-6, CIDCO, Aurangabad

Ms. Parminder Kaur, [email protected]. S S Sane, [email protected]

28 Sept. 2012 International conference on Computer Science - Theory, Applications and Research (CSTAR 2012)Sir Padampat Singhania University in association with CSI-SIG-WNs, CSI DivIV and Udaipur Chapter

Dr. Dharm Siong, [email protected] Mohapatra, [email protected] K Sharma, [email protected]

October 2012 Events

6-7 October 2012

Alan Turing Year India Celebrations- Theme: "Alan Turing - Creator of Intellectual Currents"IISc., Bangalore

Dr. Y Narahari, [email protected] http://www.csa.iisc.ernet.in/Dr. T V Gopal, [email protected]://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division2

9-10 October 2012

Alan Turing Year India CelebrationsIIT, Kanpur

Dr. Harish Karnick, [email protected]://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/Dr. T V Gopal, [email protected]://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division2

11-12 October 2012

7th Tamilnadu State Student ConventionKalasilingam University, Krishnankoil

Prof. V Thiruppathy Kesavan, [email protected] Prof. Maluk Mohammed, [email protected]

12-13 October 2012

26th Annual Karnataka Student Convention on Green Computing – Challenges & ChangeSidganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur, Karnataka

Prof. [email protected]

20 October 2012 Communication Technologies & its impact on Next Generation Computing (CTNGC-2012)I.T.S – Management & IT Institute Mohan Nagar, Ghaziabad, U.P

Prof. Umang, [email protected] Prof. Ashish Seth, [email protected]. Alka Agrawal, [email protected]

November 2012 Events

9-10 November 2012

FDP on Intelligent Computing New Horizon College of Engineering, Bangalore

Prof. Ilango [email protected]

29 Nov- 1 Dec 2012

Third International Conference on Emerging Applications of Information Technology (EAIT 2012)CSI Kolkata Chapter Event at Kolkata URL: https://sites.google.com/site/csieait2012/

D P Mukherjee/Debasish Jana/Pinakpani Pal/R T Goswami [email protected]

December 2012 Events

1-2 December 2012

47th Annual National Convention of CSI (CSI 2012) CSI Kolkata Chapter Event at Kolkata, URL: http://csi-2012.org/

Subimal Kundu/D P Mukherjee/Phalguni Mukherjee/J K Mandal, [email protected]

6-8 December 2012

Second IEEE International Conference on PDG Computing [ PDGC 2012] , TechnicallyCSI Special Interest Group on Cyber Forensics at Jaypee University of information Technology, Waknaghat- Solan (HP)

Dr. Nitin, [email protected]. Vipin Tyagi, [email protected]://www.juit.ac.in/pdgc-2012/index1.php

14-16 December 2012

International Conference on Management of Data (COMAD-2012)SIGDATA, CSI, Pune Chapter and CSI Division II

Mr. C G Sahasrabudhe [email protected]

18-20 December 2012

Alan Turing Year India Celebrations - Teacher Training. Subject: "Simplifi cation in Intelligent Computing Theory and Algorithms"Bangalore

Dr. D K Subrahmanian, [email protected]/Dr. Rajanikanth, [email protected]>www.faer.ac.in/Dr. T V Gopal, [email protected]://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/division2

January 2013 Events

29-31 January 2013

International Conference on Reliability, Infocom Technologies and Optimization(Trends and Future Directions)Amity Institute of Information Technology, Amity University, CSI and IEEE

Prof. Sunil Kumar [email protected]

CSI Calendar 2012

Prof. S V RaghavanVice President & Chair, Conference Committee, CSI

CSI Service Awards 2012Call for nominations

The Annual Convention of the Computer Society of India (CSI) will be held at Kolkata on 1st and 2nd December 2012. On this occasion, CSI felicitates with awards to chapters/ individuals for their signifi cant contributions to the society during the fi nancial year 2010-11. The awards will be presented during the Annual General meeting, at Kolkata.

The CSI awards constituted for encouraging the persons/chapters are indicated below:

1. Best National Chapter Award1

2. Best Regional Chapter Award (Category A) 3. Best Regional Chapter Award (Category B) 4. Best Regional Chapter Award (Category C) 5. Chapter Patron Award 6. Best Chapter News Letter Award 7. Signifi cant Contribution Award 8. Active Participation Award (Youth) 9. Active Participation Award (Woman)

The norms/guidelines/forms for each award have been well documented and are uploaded on the website (www.csi-india.org/web/csi/serviceawards-2012). Chapters and individuals interested in participating for these awards, may mail their nominations in a prescribed format uploaded on the website to the Executive Secretary, CSI-HQ, Mumbai at [email protected]. Incomplete application will not be considered for scrutiny.

The nomination should be routed through respective Regional Vice Presidents latest by 10th October, 2012 so that the scrutiny can be done by CSI-HQ at Mumbai and forwarded to “AWARDS COMMITTEE” headed by the Immediate Past President, for fi nal selection.

For enquires, kindly contact Mr. S M Fahimuddin Pasha, Assistant Manager, CSI HQ at [email protected]

Thanking youMD Agrawal,Chairman, Awards CommitteeComputer Society of India

1The best national chapter award will be given on the basis of nomination for best regional chapter award, so, a separate nomination for this award is not required.

Registered with Registrar of News Papers for India - RNI 31668/78 If undelivered return to : Regd. No. MH/MR/N/222/MBI/12-14 Samruddhi Venture Park, Unit No.3, Posting Date: 10 & 11 every month. Posted at Patrika Channel Mumbai-I 4th fl oor, MIDC, Andheri (E). Mumbai-400 093 Date of Publication: 10 & 11 every month

Download - 50/- - CSI INDIAcsi-india.org/communications/CSIC September 2012.pdf · The cover themes for forthcoming issues of CSI Communications are: • October 2012 - Cyber Music • November

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