Framework For Provision Of Services Research Articles

Software Defined Security Service Provisioning Framework for Internet of Things

Programmable management framework have paved the way for managing devices in the network. Lately, emerging paradigm of Software Defined Networking (SDN) have revolutionized programmable networks. Designers of networking applications i.e. Internet of things (IoT) have started investigating potentials of SDN paradigm in improving network management. IoT envision interconnecting various embedded devices surrounding our environment with IP to enable internet connectivity. Unlike traditional network architectures, IoT are characterized by constraint in resources and heterogeneous inter connectivity of wireless and wired medium. Therefore, unique challenges for managing IoT are raised which are discussed in this paper. Ubiquity of IoT have raised unique security challenges in IoT which is one of the aspect of management framework for IoT. In this paper, security threats and requirements are summarized in IoT extracted from the state of the art efforts in investigating security challenges of IoT. Also, SDN based security service provisioning framework for IoT is proposed.

Leveraging Slack Capacity in IaaS Contract Cloud Services

This paper develops pricing and capacity planning models for a cloud provider taking into account the trade-off between service reliability and capacity utilization. The provider's objectives are to optimally allocate resources, price different types of cloud services, and ultimately extract the maximum revenue from the market. We first analyze two basic types of cloud services: contract and on-demand. We then propose hybrid models in which the two basic services simultaneously exist. For each hybrid model, we determine an optimal capacity planning strategy, optimal reservation fee, optimal per-usage fee, and corresponding service reliability. We conduct experiments to study how optimal solutions change with respect to critical system parameters such as service rate, market size, and service reliability. Our work provides a framework for resource allocation, service provision, and strategic planning in cloud computing practice.

Validation of the brief version of the Recovery Self-Assessment (RSA-B) using Rasch measurement theory.

In psychiatry, the recovery paradigm is increasingly identified as the overarching framework for service provision. Currently, the Recovery Self-Assessment (RSA), a 36-item rating scale, is commonly used to assess the uptake of a recovery orientation in clinical services. However, the consumer version of the RSA has been found challenging to complete because of length and the reading level required. In response to this feedback, a brief 12-item version of the RSA was developed (RSA-B). This article describes the development of the modified instrument and the application of traditional psychometric analysis and Rasch Measurement Theory to test the psychometrics properties of the RSA-B. Data from a multisite study of adults with serious mental illnesses (n = 1256) who were followed by assertive community treatment teams were examined for reliability, clinical meaning, targeting, response categories, model fit, reliability, dependency, and raw interval-level measurement. Analyses were performed using the Rasch Unidimensional Measurement Model (RUMM 2030). Adequate fit to the Rasch model was observed (χ2 = 112.46, df = 90, p = .06) and internal consistency was good (r = .86). However, Rasch analysis revealed limitations of the 12-item version, with items covering only 39% of the targeted theoretical continuum, 2 misfitting items, and strong evidence for the 5 option response categories not working as intended. This study revealed areas for improvement in the shortened version of the 12-item RSA-B. A revisit of the conceptual model and original 36-item rating scale is encouraged to select items that will help practitioners and researchers measure the full range of recovery orientation.

Desistance From Intimate Partner Violence: A Conceptual Model and Framework for Practitioners for Managing the Process of Change.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an international issue that social and criminal justice workers will encounter regularly. It has been identified that men can, and do stop using, or desist from, IPV although it is unclear how this process of change develops. This article introduces a conceptual model to outline how the process of desistance evolves and what it encompasses. Using thematic analysis of interview data from partner-violent men, survivors, and treatment facilitators, the resulting model demonstrates that the process of change is a dynamic one where men’s use of, and cessation from, violence needs to be understood within the context of each individual’s life. Three global themes were developed: (a) lifestyle behaviors (violent): what is happening in the men’s lives when they use violence; (b) catalysts for change: the triggers and transitions required to initiate the process of change; and (c) lifestyle behaviors (non-violent): what is different in the men’s lives when they have desisted from IPV. The purpose of this model is to offer a framework for service providers to assist them to manage the process of change in partner-violent men.

Discontinuity in the responses of ecosystem processes and multifunctionality to altered soil community composition.

Ecosystem management policies increasingly emphasize provision of multiple, as opposed to single, ecosystem services. Management for such "multifunctionality" has stimulated research into the role that biodiversity plays in providing desired rates of multiple ecosystem processes. Positive effects of biodiversity on indices of multifunctionality are consistently found, primarily because species that are redundant for one ecosystem process under a given set of environmental conditions play a distinct role under different conditions or in the provision of another ecosystem process. Here we show that the positive effects of diversity (specifically community composition) on multifunctionality indices can also arise from a statistical fallacy analogous to Simpson's paradox (where aggregating data obscures causal relationships). We manipulated soil faunal community composition in combination with nitrogen fertilization of model grassland ecosystems and repeatedly measured five ecosystem processes related to plant productivity, carbon storage, and nutrient turnover. We calculated three common multifunctionality indices based on these processes and found that the functional complexity of the soil communities had a consistent positive effect on the indices. However, only two of the five ecosystem processes also responded positively to increasing complexity, whereas the other three responded neutrally or negatively. Furthermore, none of the individual processes responded to both the complexity and the nitrogen manipulations in a manner consistent with the indices. Our data show that multifunctionality indices can obscure relationships that exist between communities and key ecosystem processes, leading us to question their use in advancing theoretical understanding--and in management decisions--about how biodiversity is related to the provision of multiple ecosystem services.

High-speed rail and regional development: the case of intermediate stations

High-speed rail has developed both nationally and internationally in Europe as a successful alternative to both air and road over distances of 400–600km. Inter-city traffic, especially between the major metropolitan areas in North-west Europe has benefitted greatly from the investment in this network. This paper explores two issues: the impact on the intermediate areas between these major metropolitan areas and the creation of potential cross-border inter-regional services. The evidence shows how both levels of service and potential economic impacts have been much less pronounced in these intermediate areas. Such areas have been affected both by a failure to see greatly improved direct access to major cities other than within their own countries and a lack of new cross-border inter-regional services. The paper argues that the creation of the high-speed rail TEN-T has not met the primary objectives of reducing regional disparities in accessibility or reducing the effect of national borders on regional integration. To achieve this requires not just infrastructure provision but an appropriate regulatory framework for service provision and accompanying measures at the local level.

Community Development: The Way Forward for Social Work in Disaster Management. Critical Essay

Community development is the way forward for social work. Economic rationalism, smaller governments and possible climate changes mean more crises and less state resources, urbanisation means more densely populated communities, especially in coastal zones and adjacent waterways and coupled together, an increased need for social work interventions. Certainly, using readily available resources and preparing for potential negative events makes community development an ethical and appropriate means of dealing with issues of community for social workers. Even for disaster management where social work has been traditionally located at the crisis stage in a role of assisting with psychological stress there lies an opportunity to focus more in the community development context, not only utilising available social capital for recovery but for assisting with building capacity and thus creating solid foundations for the future of the community. The recent edited book, Community Work: Theories, Experiences and Challenge (Goel, Pulla and Francis, 2014) provides a compilation of many relevant articles that explore the concept of community development and the way in which social workers can embrace this framework for ethical service provision in contemporary Australian communities. A recent paper by Rowlands (2013) reiterates the ability of social work to work at the nexus between communities and governments in disaster management to adopt a community development approach which not only enables communities to move forward but empowers the community to assist itself. A community development approach involving social work underpinned with resilience and strengths based theories allows for ethical, professional practice within AASW guidelines that enables communities to grow and thrive as well as survive disasters of the future.

A decade of experience evolving visiting dental services in partnership with rural remote Aboriginal communities.

Embedding research capabilities and workforce development activities with clinical service entities promotes the development of sustainable, innovative, quality-focused oral health care services. Clinical and strategic governance is an important area of consideration for rural and remote dental services, posing particular challenges for smaller service structures. Sustaining remote area dental services has some significant complexities beyond those involved in urban service models. This study describes the sustaining structure of a remote area dental service with a decade of history. In the current climate, chief among these challenges may be those associated with dental workforce shortages as these impact most heavily in the public sector, and most particularly, in remote areas. As sustained workforce solutions come from developing a future workforce, an essential element of the workforce governance framework for remote dental service provision should be the inclusion of a student participation programme. Collaborative partnership approaches with Aboriginal health services promote the development and maintenance of effective, culturally sensitive dental services within rural and remote Aboriginal communities. Having sustained care for 10 years, this collaborative model of integrated research, education and service has demonstrated its effectiveness as a service model for Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. This descriptive study finds the core values for this success have been communication, clinical leadership, mentorship within effective governance systems all linked to an integrated education and research agenda.

Constructing a model of professional practice

Jonathan Beebee and Samuel Abdulla explain how they gathered opinions about the need for, and content of, a framework for service providers

NW England pharmacists pilot declaration-of-competence framework for provision of services

NW England pharmacists pilot declaration-of-competence framework for provision of services

An extended ontology-based context model and manipulation calculus for dynamic Web service processes

Services are offered in an execution context that is determined by how a provider provisions the service and how the user consumes it. The need for more flexibility requires the provisioning and consumption aspects to be addressed at run-time. We propose an ontology-based context model providing a framework for service provisioning and consumption aspects and techniques for managing context constraints for Web service processes where dynamic context concerns can be monitored and validated at service process run-time. We discuss the contextualisation of dynamically relevant aspects of Web service processes as our main goal, i.e. capture aspects in an extended context model. The technical contributions of this paper are a context model ontology for dynamic service context and an operator calculus for integrated and coherent context manipulation, composition and reasoning. The context model ontology formalises dynamic aspects of Web services and facilitates reasoning. We present the context ontology in terms of four core dimensions—functional, QoS, domain and platform—which are internally interconnected.

Enhanced logistics service provider framework for higher integration and efficiency in maritime logistics

The concept of maritime logistics results from the convergence of maritime transport and supply chains. The paper aims to propose an enhanced logistics service provider (LSP) framework which facilitates LSPs to integrate supply chains in an optimal manner by utilising their unique expertise and experience. In the framework, the enhanced LSP serves as the single contact point for shippers and assumes the leading role in supply chain optimisation with proper information sharing and pricing mechanisms. Interviews have been conducted with industry practitioners and academics to gather opinion, collect data for empirical analyses and verify the framework's feasibility. Various techniques including analytical hierarchy process, decision matrix and cost–benefit analysis are employed. Critical success factors for the framework including bargaining power of the enhanced LSP, transparent system for the performance evaluation, trusting beliefs in sharing critical information and incentives for parties to accept performance-based pricing mechanisms are identified and discussed.

Testing the Design Variables of ECOSEL: A Market Mechanism for Forest Ecosystem Services

ECOSEL is a voluntary market framework for private provision of forest ecosystem services. Multiobjective optimization is used in conjunction with a unique funding mechanism to generate and market forest management alternatives that are projected to lead to efficient bundles of ecosystem services on a piece of forestland. ECOSEL allows the public to bid on the competing alternatives. Whichever option attracts the highest combined value of bids over the associated costs is implemented by the landowner. We conduct a series of experiments to test and inform the design of the mechanism in an attempt to maximize social surplus and seller revenues. We find that allowing the participants to communicate with each other during bidding increases the likelihood of an outcome that maximizes social surplus. We also find that a lower number of alternatives presented for bidding increases seller profit. Last, threshold cost disclosure, to disclose the amount of money to the bidders that would have to be raised for a particular alternative, has a mixed impact depending on the perceived value of the services. We identify a range of public good values for which cost disclosure is always the best policy with respect to both social surplus and seller profit. FOR .S CI. ❚❚(❚):000-000.

Revenue Improvement for Wireless Service Providers in Hybrid Macrocell–Femtocell Networks

Femto base stations (FBSs) are cost-effective choices for wireless service providers (WSPs) to provide better indoor coverage and capacity in cellular networks. With the introduction of femtocells, spectrum allocation among macro base stations (MBSs) and numerous FBSs becomes challenging. WSPs will allocate resources among hierarchical infrastructures to mitigate mutual interference and maximize WSPs' revenue from service provisioning. In this paper, we propose a channel allocation and service provision framework to help WSPs allocate resources and increase revenue. The spectrum allocation and revenue maximization problem is formulated as a convex problem, and a centralized method is proposed to efficiently solve it. We also propose a distributed algorithm called LD (based on Lagrangian decomposition) to achieve a near-optimal solution with low computational and communication complexity, which can be used when the system is on a large scale. The simulation results show that our scheme can significantly improve the system's revenue.

Brain injury professionals' perspectives on risk assessment

PurposeThe sequelae of acquired brain injury can lead to a complex array of risks. This research explores professionals' perspectives on those risks, focussing on how psycho‐social risks are assessed and managed.Design/methodology/approachA self completion questionnaire was designed, and distributed to a range of professionals working in brain injury services.FindingsA total of 177 participants completed an anonymous questionnaire. Principal components analysis produced three factors, which were given the labels “User‐friendliness”, “Person‐centeredness” and “Coherence”. Inconsistencies were identified in approaches to risk assessment and management. Participants also reported particular beneficial approaches, such as multi‐disciplinary discussions, and using assessments to guide rehabilitation.Research limitations/implicationsThe convenience sampling approach limits the generalisablity of the findings. However, the study was adequately powered, reliable, and valid.Practical implicationsThe findings of this research, existing literature, and clinical experience are drawn together in a proposed model for managing risk. This model, which incorporates the three factors identified through statistical analysis could guide effective risk management, documentation and associated procedures. The model presents a framework for service design and provision, as well as providing a focus for future research.Social implicationsIt is likely that more active engagement in risk assessment on the part of professionals, services, and those who access services, will be engendered if the process is able to become more user‐friendly, person‐centred, and coherent, across and within service provision.Originality/valueDespite legislative calls for regular training and effective communication in relation to risk, this is not the routine experience of professionals working in brain injury services. The findings of the present research offer a new, structured process, for overcoming the challenge for embedding legislation and research findings into practice.

An Event-Driven SOA Based Service Integration Framework for Provision of Active Services

The tendency of future communication network is to set up an environment supporting network convergence as well as dynamic service collaboration. The recent Internet of Things (IoT) visions makes provision of User-Centric and active service to common users an important aim. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on Web service technology works well for provision of request/response style passive service. However, services and devices in IoT or mobile environment may dynamically interact and cause a considerable amount of states changes, which calls for an active and more flexible framework to enable interactive service provision. In this paper we propose an Event-driven SOA based service integration framework (EDSIF) for provision of active service. Compared with traditional SOA based service provision method, this approach will facilitate real-time event processing as well as intelligent service coordination. We present the concept model of Event-driven SOA and the key components of EDSIF. We also illustrate the ECA4IoS rules for active service execution and the enhancement work of WSN broker towards an effective EDSIF.

A Publish/Subscribe Model for QoSaware Service Provisioning and Selection

the growing adoption of the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in the industry and the wide deployment of Web services, users are increasingly requiring services that are capable of meeting their quality -of-service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for QoS-aware Web service provisioning, which relies on QoS brokers, to mediate between clients and service providers, and a QoS Notification Broker that implements a publish/subscribe model to handle notifications on significant changes in QoS offerings. Furthermore, we describe a multi-attributes algorithm for the selection of potential service providers that can fulfill clients' requests. The algorithm calculates the utility value of each service provider, per Web service type, based on the client QoS requirements. One of the advantages of the approach is that service providers may provide several service types. These services may be simple Web services or composite Web services aggregated from other services. The publish/subscribe model allows QoS brokers to be aware of significant changes in the QoS offerings of service providers; and consequently, be able to make informed selection decisions. Besides, the proposed selection algorithm allows ranking service providers by matching their up-to-date QoS offers against the QoS required by the client.

Super-peer-based coordinated service provision

Leveraging P2P technologies for Web service provision attracts considerable research interests. One of the challenges is how to enable the service providers to adapt themselves in response to dynamic service demand. More specifically, one interesting research issue is coordinating the service groups in order to enable inter-group collaboration and resource sharing. In this paper, we propose a super-peer-based coordinated service provision framework (SCSP), consisting of an S-labor-market model (super-peer-based labor-market model), a recruiting protocol based on a weighting mechanism, and an optimal dispatch algorithm. In the SCSP, the S-labor-market model is designed to build the coordination among service groups by employing the proposed recruiting protocol. The optimal dispatch algorithm is designed to select the optimal service peers within a service group to process service requests. Finally, we perform simulations to evaluate the SCSP with four application scenarios. The experimental results show that our SCSP is efficient in coordinating the service groups, and possess good scalability and robustness.

Refugee women survivors of war related sexualised violence: a multicultural framework for service provision in resettlement countries

This paper explores the question of redressing war related sexualised violence, often referred to as war rape, with refugee women in resettlement contexts using a Canadian case example. The first part of the paper uses theory and research to frame sexualised violence as a tool of war whose practice and impact are shaped by gender and cultural factors. This section highlights how, for survivors, the combination of psychological trauma and socio-cultural factors in post migration environments can create barriers for seeking help, social support, as well as vulnerability to further victimisation and mental health difficulties. The second section provides a case example of a community based mental health initiative in Canada for survivors of war related sexualised violence. The case explores the use of a psychosocial framework that integrates cultural competency, gender perspectives, and community advocacy. Challenges and opportunities of service provision in resettlement contexts are discussed, and recommendations are provided for multicultural mental health practice that is collaborative, community oriented, and sensitive to trauma survivors' needs.

A conceptual framework to assess the effects of environmental change on ecosystem services

A new conceptual framework is presented for the assessment of the impacts of environmental change drivers on ecosystem service provision and the policy and management responses that would derive from the valuation of these impacts. The Framework for Ecosystem Service Provision (FESP), is based on an interpretation of the widely-used Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework. FESP differs from the DPSIR by offering clarity in the definitions of the various DPSIR components as well as introducing novel elements of relevance to the ecosystem service approach. The value of a common framework lies in making the comparison across competing services accessible and clear as well as highlighting the conflicts and trade-offs between not only multiple ecosystem services, but also multiple service beneficiaries. The framework is explicit, for example, in recognising as state variables not only the attributes of the Ecosystem Service Providers (ESPs), but also the attributes of the Ecosystem Service Beneficiaries (ESBs). That a service depends as much on the attributes of the people whose well-being benefits from the service as on the attributes of the biology providing the service is an important step in integrated social-ecological thinking. FESP also identifies the mechanisms of either mitigation or adaptation to the environmental change problem through the effect of these response strategies on specific pressure or state variables. In this way, FESP can contribute to the policies and strategies that are used to support conservation management. This paper describes the principles of FESP and presents some indicative examples of its practical implementation.