Service Verification Research Articles

Procurement Process and Financial Performance in Public Universities, Kenya

The poor financial performance of Kenya's public institutions has resulted in campus closures and an ever-increasing backlog of unpaid debts for a number of years. The academic institutions have encountered difficulties in recruiting sufficient faculty members to meet the demands of the curricula. The study aimed to establish the relationship between the procurement process and the financial performance of Public Universities in Kenya. The study adopted a correlational research design, and the target population was the public universities in Kenya with a purposive sample of 155 managers selected from three categories of universities according to their age and when they were chartered. The primary data was collected using questionnaires, and secondary data was collected using an Excel schedule and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The correlation findings indicated that the procurement process had a positive and significant relationship with financial performance (r = .674, p = .000<.05). The R-square value of 0.454 indicates that the procurement process explains 45.4% of variations in the financial performance of public universities. Regression results revealed that the procurement process had a positive and significant influence on financial performance (β = 0.589, p=.000<.05), and this implies that the procurement process significantly enhances the financial performance of public universities in Kenya. The study concluded that the procurement process contributes significantly to the enhanced financial performance of public universities. The study recommended that the management of public universities should strengthen aspects relating to the procurement process. There is a need to ensure that the quality of goods and services purchased is up to standard. There should be inspection and verification of goods and services. There is also a need to involve experts in the evaluation and awards of tenders.

A Framework for Joint Verification and Evaluation of Seasonal Climate Services across Socioeconomic Sectors

Abstract Assessing the information provided by coproduced climate services is a timely challenge, given the continuously evolving scientific knowledge and its increasing translation to address societal needs. Here, we propose a joint evaluation and verification framework to assess prototype services that provide seasonal forecast information based on the experience from the Horizon 2020 (H2020) Climate forecasts enabled knowledge services (CLARA) project. The quality and value of the forecasts generated by CLARA services were first assessed for five climate services utilizing the Copernicus Climate Change Service seasonal forecasts and responding to knowledge needs from the water resources management, agriculture, and energy production sectors. This joint forecast verification and service evaluation highlights various skills and values across physical variables, services, and sectors, as well as a need to bridge the gap between verification and user-oriented evaluation. We provide lessons learned based on the service developers’ and users’ experience and recommendations to consortia that may want to deploy such verification and evaluation exercises. Last, we formalize a framework for joint verification and evaluation in service development, following a transdisciplinary (from data purveyors to service users) and interdisciplinary chain (climate, hydrology, economics, and decision analysis).

ПРОГРАМА РОЗРІШУВАЧІВ SMT ДЛЯ ФОРМАЛЬНОЇ ПЕРЕВІРКИ СЕРВІСІВ НА ОСНОВІ ПОЛІТИКИ В ХМАРНОМУ СЕРЕДОВИЩІ

Formal verification of policy-based services in cloud environments using SMT (Satisfiability Modulo Theories) solvers involves encoding the policies and service behaviors as logical formulas and checking whether the formulas are satisfactory or unsatisfiable. SMT solvers can be used to verify that the policies are enforced correctly and that the service behaviors are consistent with the policies.

Viscoelastic Paste-Based Ceramic vat Photopolymerization: Recent Achievements and Future Developments

Ceramic vat photopolymerization (VPP) enables the fabrication of complex components with excellent properties and high precision. However, compared with metals and polymers, the industrial application of ceramic VPPs remains relatively limited. This can be attributed to the challenges associated with ceramic feedstock printability, the complexity of the printing process, insufficient performance evaluation, and service verification. To overcome these limitations, the design of a viscoelastic paste and corresponding VPP strategies offer a promising solution. This paper presents a review of the research on the state of viscoelastic ceramic paste-based VPP. The main technical aspects, including the paste design, support strategies, green-body cleaning, and subsequent post-treatment, are discussed. Furthermore, representative applications of VPP for various types of advanced ceramics are surveyed. This review also highlights the technical challenges involved and provides suggestions for addressing these issues. Finally, future directions for promoting the additive manufacturing of advanced ceramic components with enhanced efficiency and reliability are discussed.

A service-categorized security scheme with physical unclonable functions for internet of vehicles

In smart cities, communication and information exchange for the Internet of Vehicles rely on open and closed infrastructures along the roadside. Secure communications rely on the sender and receiver devices having self-sustaining authentication methods. The perquisites of the authentication methods are to grip communication without being falsified by an adversary or unidentified third parties. This article introduces the Service-Categorized Security Scheme (SCSS) with a physically unclonable function (PUF) for handling sensitive guidance/communication information. The vehicle-side authentication, access control, and service demands are governed using service-based PUF factors such as digital signatures, passwords, etc. To prevent anonymous third parties and adversaries, the PUF operates over compromised and uncompromised communication devices. Device-specific keys generated by PUFs based on intrinsic physical variances help identify between compromised and uncompromised devices, while keys generated by uncompromised devices conform to their expected profiles In the service-sharing process, mutual authentication using synchronized keys is used for security and service verification. The synchronized keys are integrated with the PUF for monitoring de-synchronization and individual operation. This decision is made using federated learning from the external service provider and the communicator of the vehicle. Through the learning process, a de-synchronization occurrence at the service provider and vehicle is identified as the reason for disconnecting the session. As a result, any suspicious activity that contradicts service security is identified, and the information of the communicating vehicle is secured. The proposed scheme is analyzed using the metrics authentication time, adversary detection ratio, complexity, de-synchronization time, and successful sessions.

Indicators Based on Service Verification Sheets: Case Study in Vertical Buildings

Indicators Based on Service Verification Sheets: Case Study in Vertical Buildings

The Mediating Role of Trust in National Digital Identity Verification Platform Acceptance: A Conceptual Paper

Government and private organisation services online have been adopted rapidly during the digitalisation post-COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of digital identity exacerbates the authentication and verification of online services. This study investigates the mediating role of trust on determinants of national digital identity verification platform acceptance among young investors. The study develops an integrated theoretical framework from the Protection Motivation Theory and Uncertainty Reduction Theory. The study model incorporates three constructs, namely perceived severity, response efficacy, and transparency and accesses how trust as a mediator affects the acceptance of the NDIV platform. The online quantitative survey approach will be used as the method of this study, and data will be distributed among young investors in Malaysia. This study employs a comprehensive framework to understand the acceptance level of the NDIV platform. The study's findings will contribute to the body of knowledge regarding the NDIV platform in the Malaysian context.

Genomic alterations and self-reported Agent Orange exposure in United States veterans with metastatic prostate cancer.

5068 Background: Agent Orange has been posited as an environmental risk factor for prostate cancer among United States Veterans. Prior studies have shown that Veterans with Agent Orange exposure are diagnosed at a younger age and at more advanced clinical stages. It is unknown if there are differences in somatic alterations among Veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Methods: Genomic alterations were identified from clinical tumor testing conducted from 2019 – 2022 in a large cohort of Veterans with metastatic prostate cancer diagnosed from 2001 – 2022. Primary prostate and metastatic carcinoma tissue specimens were submitted for Foundation Medicine tumor-only sequencing. Baseline demographics, clinical, and genomic alterations data were stratified by Veteran self-reported exposure to Agent Orange in accordance with an institutional review board approved protocol. Results: Of the 2673 Veterans with metastatic prostate cancer who underwent tumor-only genomic testing, 629 reported exposure to Agent Orange and 2044 were not exposed. After verification of military service records of Veterans with self-reported Agent Orange exposure to include only Veterans who served in the Vietnam War between 1962 – 1975 and Korean War between 1967 – 1971, 603 patients with self-reported Agent Orange exposure (22.8%) and 2044 without exposure (77.2%) were included in the analysis. On univariate analysis, TMPRSS2-ERG fusions were significantly more frequent in men who reported exposure to Agent Orange (35.3% vs 28.8%, p<0.01) after multiple hypothesis testing with Benjamini-Hochberg. Agent Orange exposure also correlated to higher rates of androgen receptor ( AR) alterations (12.4% vs 9.5%, p=0.04) and FGFR1/2/3/4 alterations (3.2% vs 1.7%, p=0.02). There were no significant differences in alterations by Agent Orange exposure in TP53, CDK12, ERBB2, EGFR, BRCA, and genes implicated in the DNA damage response and repair (DDR), mismatch repair (MMR), and PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathways. On multivariable analysis controlling for race, age at diagnosis, smoking, secondary malignancies, and environment, only alterations in AR (OR 1.43, p=0.02) remained more frequent in Veterans exposed to Agent Orange. As expected, age at diagnosis (OR 0.98, p <0.001) and Black/African-American race (OR 0.33, p<0.001) were associated with decreased odds of TMPRSS2-ERG alterations. Conclusions: Agent Orange exposure may contribute to tumor somatic alterations in Veterans with prostate cancer. These findings hold potential prognostic and therapeutic implications for U.S. Veterans with metastatic prostate cancer. [Table: see text]

Enabling conditions for scaling natural climate solutions in Canada's agriculture sector

Natural climate solutions can contribute to climate change mitigation and other environmental and social goals. An emerging body of academic and gray literature seeks to identify how governance ecosystems, inclusive of diverse actors, the mechanisms they employ, and the conditions they create, can actualize the potential of natural climate solutions. Enabling conditions are a critical component of these governance ecosystems as they describe the conditions needed to achieve a desired outcome. However, limited empirical research explores what conditions and combinations of conditions might promote the implementation of natural climate solutions across agricultural landscapes. This paper aims to identify and categorize enabling conditions for scaling natural climate solutions adoption in agriculture to address this gap. This objective is achieved through 51 semi-structured key informant interviews with diverse experts engaged in climate action in Canada's agriculture sector, which are corroborated with relevant literature. The expertise of key informants includes: agricultural production; agricultural technology; climate and environmental policy and markets; sustainable investment; sustainable sourcing and agri-food supply chains; measuring, reporting, and verification of ecosystem services; technical assistance; and ecosystem modeling. Findings from the interviews suggest that the potential for natural climate solutions adoption is currently limited by several critical barriers, including regulatory uncertainty, insufficient investment in measuring and monitoring infrastructure, and a lack of accessible and relevant resources to inform and guide actors. Aggregated findings point to four principal enabling conditions that together form the foundational conditions for an enabling governance ecosystem for natural climate solutions adoption in agriculture: (1) coordinated and coherent governance approaches; (2) favourable market conditions; (3) streamlined and robust measuring, reporting and verification; and (4) capacity among actors. This paper's contribution includes identifying and organizing enabling conditions for scaling the adoption of agriculture-based natural climate solutions, which can help better position actors to build an effective governance ecosystem in Canada's agriculture sector and elsewhere.

양산형 BIPV 복합 유닛 패널 및 모니터링 서비스 디자인개발

This study develops a 'mass-production BIPV composite unit panel and IoT-based monitoring service that can be mass-produced in the form of factory standard products to improve the economic feasibility of the overall installation work when installing BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic) solar modules Research and development was carried out to monitor and manage possible errors or events at all times. In order to carry out this research purpose, a hypothesis was established as a research question and verified. In the area of product design development, not only the development of the shape design of the product appearance, but also the design and functional parts to improve the usability of the user should be considered in a complex manner. It belongs to items that are difficult to pursue diversity. Although it is attracting attention as photovoltaic power generation and eco-friendly products, there are difficulties in market formation and preoccupation due to low product transport, constructability, aesthetic dissatisfaction, and usability satisfaction. Therefore, we proceeded to develop an external design that can be faithful to the role of the building exterior material, improve product functionality, and improve the ease of installation and management. In addition, design revisions and supplements were reviewed through the developed design satisfaction survey, the results were reflected, and the usability evaluation of the product linkage system was conducted to review the customer's service design satisfaction and requirements together. The research method was developed so that BIPV can be freely applied without compromising the aesthetics of the building, designing the structure of the ventilation path to solve the heat problem inside the BIPV composite unit panel, designing fasteners for easy installation in various installation spaces (roof or wall) In addition, in conjunction with the user experience-based monitoring system, the maintenance convenience is increased by allowing the administrator to accurately determine the presence or absence of a failure and the location of the failure of the BIPV composite unit panel. Through this research and development, we have completed the development of an ioT sensor module capable of detecting individual unit failures, and the demonstration construction and service verification of a user-oriented photovoltaic monitoring system for a user-centered building with IoT data collection notes and communication gateways applied. Through the demonstration of the R&D results, the significance of the established hypothesis was verified by deriving the user's product usage pattern, product problem derivation, and user's requirements in detail and solving the problem.

Exploring quality of citizen service delivery system in the state of Karnataka, India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the citizen perception of quality of service with respect to the Government’s citizen service delivery system of Karnataka and conduct an investigation to determine the major factors which affect the quality of Government service delivery system in the state of Karnataka in India.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data related to variables affecting citizen service satisfaction are collected using a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was designed based on literature review and consulting officers associated with public service delivery system in the state of Karnataka.FindingsThe study found that the five factors “Responsiveness,” “Tangibility,” “Predictability,” “Reliability” and “Perceptiveness” are primary determinants of the quality of citizen/government services.Research limitations/implicationsRight to Service Act has been adapted by 24 states and 5 union territories in India. It is highly impossible to study the progress of Right to Service Act in each and every state of India. In this paper, the author has made a detailed study of state of Karnataka, which has the highest in-time service disposition rate −95.06%, highest number of institutions −99 and highest number of services −1,115 services under Right to Service Act in India and generalized the results for other states.Practical implicationsThis research enables government institutions/organizations to enhance their understanding of citizen service quality and perception of government services. The citizen satisfaction gauging parameters can provide useful direction to the design, implementation and management of government services.Social implicationsGovernment/citizen services include services provided by each and every department of the government. The services covered here begin from birth of individual as birth certificate service till the death of individual which includes death certificate, and in between this life cycle of an individual, important events such as service related to caste certificate, marriage certificate, service verification for job, property or Khatha certificate are included under government services, covering services related to all the major events of one’s life. The improved level of service quality can enhance service satisfaction among citizens resulting in good governance.Originality/valueThe paper addresses quality of Government services for the first time in the state of Karnataka, India using a carefully designed research study. This paper is of value to research scholars in the area of government service quality in India and other countries where government services are delivered either under Right to Services Act, in stipulated time frame or through citizen charters.

Implementation of Block-Level Double Encryption Based on Machine Learning Techniques for Attack Detection and Prevention

Cloud computing is one of the most important business models of modern information technology. It provides a minimum of various services to the user interaction and low cost (hardware and software). Cloud services are based on the newline architectures on virtualization by using the multitenancy for better resource management and newline strong isolation between several virtual machines (VMs). The spying on a victim VM is challenging, particularly when one wants to use per-core microarchitectural features as a side channel. For example, the cache contains the most potential for damaging side channels, but shared information across different cores affects the cloud information. To overcome this problem, propose the Secure Block-Level Double Encryption (SBLDE) algorithm for user signature verification in the cloud server. It uses identity-based detection techniques to monitor the colocated VMs to identify abnormal cache data and channel behaviors typically during VM data transformation. The identity-based linear classification (IBLC) method is used for classifying the attacker channel when the data is transferred/retrieved from the VM cloud server. This cloud controller finds the channel misbehavior to block the port or channel, changing other available ports’ communication. The service verification provides strong user access permission on the cloud server when the unknown request to the cloud server suddenly executes the key authentication to verify the user permission. This linear classification trains the existing side-channel attack datasets to the classifier and identifies the VM cloud’s attack channel. The study focused on preventing attacks from interrupting the system and serves as an effective means for cross-VM side-channel attacks. This proposed method protects the cloud data and prevents cross-VM channel attack detection efficiently, compared to other existing methods. In this overall proposed method, SBLDE’s performance is to be evaluated and then compared with the existing method.

Performance Verification Module Design for Safety Operation Support Service of MASS

Safety operation support service (SOS service) is composed of six services to efficiently support Maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS) such as navigation, arrival and departure, cargo operation, inspection, etc. Since this service is developed based on software, performance verification of the service program should be accompanied. There are two methods to verify software. The first is a functional test, which verifies the function of the software and the second is a non-functional test, which verifies the rest except for the function. This study designed modules for performance verification of SOS service through the two test methods. The functional test identifies the implemented function based on the requirement specification for each service and to determine whether the function operates. The non-functional test determines the adequacy of the rest of the performance except for the function such as recovery ability, reliability, usability, etc. Especially for usability testing, user for each service and essential information for each user was classified to improve the efficiency of testing.

STANDARDISATION AND JUSTIFICATION OF PRODUCT AND SERVICE QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE HOTEL AND RESTAURANT INDUSTRY

The hospitality industry is a fast-growing sector of the economy, which contributes to the development of other sectors of the country’s economy. Cultural and business relations of Ukraine with other countries are expanding, the number of tourists requiring accommodation and service facilities meeting international standards is growing. Therefore, attention to the quality, safety, competitiveness and standardisation of hotel services has recently increased. The main task of hospitality industry enterprises is to serve guests of our country providing them with accommodation, arranging business meetings, satisfying their demand for high-quality recreation and entertainment. To study the quality of provided services expert methods based on a quality scoring scale are widely used in the field of hospitality. Unified legislative requirements, standards, quality analysis and verification of products and services provided by hospitality establishments is necessary to ensure the quality of services that meet the world standard requirements. Qualimetric assessment methods allow to convert qualitative indicators into quantitative ones, which simplifies the research process. To assess the quality of products and services a comprehensive method has been applied, which lies in the quality level assessment with a single number obtained by combining the used single qualitative indexes into one complex index. The research is about the services quality of the four-star Gagarinn Hotel in the city of Odesa. The survey has revealed that the quality service criterion is well-organized booking, reception and accommodation of the hotel. It has been found that the guests accommodated by group characteristics value professionalism and service culture the most, followed by convenience of payment and service standard. The composite assessment of the guest service quality in the accommodation establishment is 0.65. The results show that the quality of services provided at the stage of booking, reception and accommodation of guests in the studied hotel is at a sufficiently high level.

MANIFESTAÇÕES PATOLÓGICAS EM POSTES DE CONCRETO ARMADO EM DECORRÊNCIA DO SEU PROCESSO PRODUTIVO

Pathological manifestations originate mainly in the production process of the poles, and knowing which measures can be taken in the production process to avoid pathological manifestations in the poles is the main problem. The purpose of this research is to elaborate these measures that will mitigate the pathological manifestations present in the company, which are blisters, spots and segregation. For this, the entire fabrication will be evaluated, making a follow-up from the project, assembling the reinforcement, preparing the concrete, launching, densification and storage of the posts, and then the pathological manifestations in the parts that had their manufacturing process will be analyzed. accompanied, verifying the cause and effect relationship, to then elaborate necessary measures to minimize these problems of the produced poles. For this, service verification sheets, test reports and projects provided by the company will be used. That done, it was observed that the company was using burnt oil as a release agent and did not perform an adequate cleaning of the forms, resulting in dark spots on the posts and bubbles, and these still found a relationship with the wrong launch and thickening. Other than that, it was observed that segregation was directly related to the leakage of forms. With this, it is known that the mitigation of the company's pathological manifestations will be done with the use of an appropriate release agent, an adequate cleaning of the forms and its correct sealing, the densification of the concrete with sufficient number of vibrators for its uniform densification together with the training of the employees responsible for concreting the posts.

Model Checking Based Web Service Verification: A Systematic Literature Review

Model checking is a popular formal technique facilitating automatic verification of finite-state transition systems, and it has been applied to almost all of the Web service verification aspects, such as control-flow, data-flow, interaction, time requirements, quality of service, security requirements, etc. However, no systematic literature review focused on model checking of Web services is available. Motivated by this fact, in this paper, we systematically review existing research works on model checking based Web service verification appeared during the period of 2002–2017. We present a verification goal based classification of the collected articles, and for each paper, we identify the verification technique, target Web service standard, flavor of the employed model checking technique and tool, and other supplementary techniques, if any. Further, we highlight some of the issues, gaps, key challenges in this area and propose some future directions.

Optimal Multilevel Link Extend Umpiring Routing Based Secure Routing Protocol for Improving Privacy Standard in Wireless Sensor Networks

Generally wireless sensor networks (WSN) are connected via a wireless medium to form a large amount of cooperative sensor nodes. Monitoring control is an important aspect of monitoring users in monitoring applications, such as wireless sensor networks, because of security. There are countless applications to pay for themselves but at the same time, their special properties offer a number of challenges, such as security and surveillance, control, and operation and complex system maintenance. WSN has already seen it on the Internet, from face-to-face security attacks. To propose an Optimal Multilevel Link extend umpiring routing (OML-EUR) based secure routing protocol for improving privacy standard in wireless sensor networks. Secure communication is also important in providing accurate and resource constraints at the sensor node at the moment. In this study, there are three of our contributions. Initially it monitors the neighbor network layer attacks for browsing the WSN on the transmission medium. Followed subscription a link establishment to monitoring the request packets through key transmission of WSN with secure routing protocols. By finding the secure communication as qualities of service verification among the modes to authenticate to transfer. The proposed system produce high secure performance by the result proves energy consumption and communication overhead as higher efficient than previous system.

An Event-B based approach for cloudcomposite services verification

AbstractThe verification of the Cloud composite services’ correctness is challenging. In fact, multiple component services, derived from different Cloud providers with different service description languages and communication protocols, are involved in the composition which may raise incompatibility issues that in turn lead to a non-consistent composition. In this work, we propose a formal approach to model and verify Cloud composite services. Four verification levels are considered in this article; the structural, semantic, behavioral, and resource allocation levels. Therefore, we opted for the Event-B formal method that enables complex problems decomposition thanks to its refinement capabilities. The proposed approach has proven its efficiency for the modelling and verification of Cloud composite services. The proposed model comprises four abstract levels with respect to the four verification axes. A proof-based approach is applied to the model’s verification. We also succeeded in the validation of the model thanks to the model animation provided by the PROB tool. The use of formal methods provides a rigorous reasoning and mathematical proofs on the correction of the model which ensures the elaboration of correct-by-construction composite services.

Applying Formal Methods to SOA and SaaS Service Compositions for ERP Systems

Service oriented architectures (SOA) and software as a service (SaaS) models are accelerating the use of the service concept. They have been rapidly adopted by enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers and offers to organizations modern environments favorable for making strategic decisions. However, as the SaaS concept is often confused with the SOA one, a solution is needed to clarify this problem before moving to the introduction of a framework that aggregates several services. Moreover, most of the services-based solutions rely on a particular composition and only a few are equipped with appropriate formal tools for automating the service verification. They focus on specific formal models and are based on particular properties. This article proposes a formal framework that reveals a set of general steps starting from defining the service composition before shifting to the use of the chosen formal methods so as to verify the ERP system properties.

Service Verification and Performance Validation for 5G Networks [From the Guest Editors

The papers in this special section focus on service verification and performance validation for fifth generation mobile communication networks.