Using the Sayre Model to analyze Internet privacy

The Internet continues to evolve as a transportal of electronic commerce. It has penetrated into every facet of organizational life, from the ordering of commodity goods to providing a means to speed the recording and payment of federal income taxes. Internet usage continues to expand rapidly, surfacing issues in its wake that must be managed in order for it to ensure that it is viable as a long-term strategic tool for government and industry. To bridge the legal gap that has emerged as a result of the dynamic growth of the Internet, the United States Congress has acted to begin to address issues such as access to information and the unauthorized use of personal data. Though the issues themselves are not new, the amount of information and the rapidity of transfer of the information have been greatly expanded by the use of the Internet. This paper explores the relationship between the three dimensions (government, individual consumer needs and business as represented by industry groups) that are influencing the development of a legislated Internet privacy model

Building Relationships That Last: Integrating Public Relations Into Web Design

This paper explores the relationship between web site design, public relations strategy, and a consumer\u27s intention to return to a web site. This relationship is defined through a model that explores the influence of information satisfaction, particularly when the web site design is congruent with the consumer\u27s expectations. The public relations dimension extends the consumer web site design model by interjecting a long-term focus on relationship building that organizations will need to make electronic commerce a viable investment in information technology resources. This is significant because it recognizes the importance of developing loyalty and trust online

E-Commerce Adoption in the Insurance Industry

While other industries within the financial sector have vigorously embraced the Internet to obtain sustainable competitive advantage, the insurance industry has been slow to fully adopt e-commerce. This article examines the barriers as well as the success factors involved in making the transition to a Web-enabled insurance model. Emerging standards and technologies that will make possible the next generation of e-commerce in the insurance industry are discussed and a proposed research agenda is presented

The late-type stellar content of the Fornax and Sculptor dwarf galaxies

A field of area 0.13 square degrees has been surveyed for late-type stars in each of the Fornax and Sculptor dwarf elliptical galaxies. JHK photometric data have been obtained for most of the stars found. In Fornax, we have positively identified 25 C stars and one M giant. In Sculptor, two relatively blue C stars and a small number of possible M giants have been identified. In contrast to the Magellanic Clouds, there are no M6-M9 giants in Fornax or Sculptor. The mean value and the variance of the bolometric luminosity function for the Fornax C stars are — 4.66 ± 0.47, quite similar to the values for the Magellanic Cloud C stars. The colors of the Fornax C stars overlap those of the C stars in the Magellanic Clouds but are bluer in the mean. The large dispersion in the color-magnitude diagram of the Fornax C stars is interpreted as arising from a significant spread in age and/or metallicity in the stellar population of Fornax. The C stars found in Sculptor are quite similar in color and luminosity to the C stars in the globular cluster ω Centauri and are at the faint end of the luminosity distribution of C stars found in the Magellanic Clouds and Fornax. The ratio of cool C stars to M stars, as determined from identical survey techniques, increases dramatically along the sequence Milky Way, LMC, SMC, and Fornax. This increase, together with systematic changes in the colors of the C and M stars, can be understood as arising from a systematic decrease in the mean metallicity of the galaxies on this sequence. The lack of concurrent significant changes in M_(bol)(mean) or M_(bol)(max) of the carbon stars may not be consistent with current theories of C star formation and evolution. The new data for Sculptor, as well as those previously published, point to a stellar population, and possibly a star-formation history, qualitatively similar to that of ω Cen. A sharp discontinuity between Fornax and Sculptor in some of the properties which characterize the late-type stellar population of these two systems stands in contrast to a rather smooth gradation in the same properties for Fornax and galaxies more massive than it. We speculate that this discontinuity could have arisen if Sculptor were stripped of its gas component at a much earlier time than Fornax

A Primary Study of Attributes of Innovations during the Prediffusion Stage

We provide a theoretical model for testing the adoption of information technology during the prediffusion stage (research and development and early trials) of an innovation. The model was tested using Linux based applications of Open Source Software (OSS). The results of surveying 1000 members of the Linux User Groups WorldWide (LUGWW) are presented. This study is significant because it provides empirical evidence that attributes of innovations correlate with adoption during the prediffusion stage (research and development) of an innovation. This extends diffusion of innovations research and has important implications for DOI theory and practice

Qualitative and quantitative comparison of the cytotoxic and apoptotic potential of phytosterol oxidation products with their corresponding cholesterol oxidation products

Phytosterols contain an unsaturated ring structure and therefore are susceptible to oxidation under certain conditions. Whilst the cytotoxicity of the analogous cholesterol oxidation products (COP) has been well documented, the biological effects of phytosterol oxidation products (POP)have not yet been fully ascertained. The objective of the present study was to examine the cytotoxicity of β-sitosterol oxides and their corresponding COP in a human monocytic cell line (U937), a colonic adenocarcinoma cell line (CaCo-2) and a hepatoma liver cell line (HepG2). 7β-Hydroxysitosterol, 7-ketositosterol, sitosterol-3β,5α,6β-triol and a sitosterol-5α,6α-epoxide sitosterol-5β,6β-epoxide (6:1) mixture were found to be cytotoxic to all three cell lines employed; the mode of cell death was by apoptosis in the U937 cell line and necrosis in the CaCo-2 and HepG2 cells. 7β-Hydroxysitosterol was the only β-sitosterol oxide to cause depletion in glutathione, indicating that POP-induced apoptosis may not be dependent on the generation of an oxidative stress. A further objective of this study was to assess the ability of the antioxidants α-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol and β-carotene to modulate POP-induced cytotoxicity in U937 cells. Whilst α/γ-tocopherol protected against 7β-hydroxycholesterol-induced apoptosis, they did not confer protection against 7β-hydroxysitosterol-or 7-ketositosterol-induced toxicity, indicating that perhaps COP provoke different apoptotic pathways than POP. β-Carotene did not protect against COP- or POP-induced toxicity. In general, results indicate that POP have qualitatively similar toxic effects to COP. However, higher concentrations of POP are required to elicit comparable levels of toxicity

The Racket Manifesto

The creation of a programming language calls for guiding principles that point the developers to goals. This article spells out the three basic principles behind the 20-year development of Racket. First, programming is about stating and solving problems, and this activity normally takes place in a context with its own language of discourse; good programmers ought to formulate this language as a programming language. Hence, Racket is a programming language for creating new programming languages. Second, by following this language-oriented approach to programming, systems become multi-lingual collections of interconnected components. Each language and component must be able to protect its specific invariants. In support, Racket offers protection mechanisms to implement a full language spectrum, from C-level bit manipulation to soundly typed extensions. Third, because Racket considers programming as problem solving in the correct language, Racket also turns extra-linguistic mechanisms into linguistic constructs, especially mechanisms for managing resources and projects. The paper explains these principles and how Racket lives up to them, presents the evaluation framework behind the design process, and concludes with a sketch of Racket\u27s imperfections and opportunities for future improvements

Teaching functional patterns through robotic applications

We present our approach to teaching functional programming to First Year Computer Science stu- dents at Middlesex University through projects in robotics. A holistic approach is taken to the cur- riculum, emphasising the connections between different subject areas. A key part of the students’ learning is through practical projects that draw upon and integrate the taught material. To support these, we developed the Middlesex Robotic plaTfOrm (MIRTO), an open-source platform built using Raspberry Pi, Arduino, HUB-ee wheels and running Racket (a LISP dialect). In this paper we present the motivations for our choices and explain how a number of concepts of functional programming may be employed when programming robotic applications. We present some students’ work with robotics projects: we consider the use of robotics projects to have been a success, both for their value in reinforcing students’ understanding of programming concepts and for their value in motivating the students

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 32

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs