You need not look far to find a slew of articles, white papers, and research reports describing the vulnerability of voice over IP systems. VoIP systems are vulnerable, but currently, the threat of actual attack to these systems is moderate. New vulnerabilities are being reported at an accelerating rate, such as the one that recently affected Cisco’s Call Manager (http://www.techweb.com/wire/ s...

BACKGROUND Abuse of older people is a serious issue and is associated with an increased risk of morbidity and mortality, and professionals will encounter elderly victims of abuse in all areas of the health care system. An important health determinant is behavioral factors, including coping style, which will impact on how older people manage stress and maintain control in their lives, and thereb...

Life is evolving fast (at least in the first world) and the latest technological gadget becomes outdated even before we have learnt how to use it. In this respect, science is no exception. The new buzzword ‘Systems Biology’ entered the vocabulary of the scientific community only a few years ago. Now that every biologist is aware of it and almost everyone seems to be doing it, an even newer buzz...

With increasing complexity of software systems, their management becomes more difficult and costly. While management of today’s software systems is usually performed by humans using some user interface (UI), autonomic systems would be self-managed. They would typically consist of a managed element, which provides actual system functionality, and an autonomic manager performing system management...

It is usually supposed that inflation is of the slow-roll variety, and that the inflaton generates the primordial curvature perturbation. According to the curvaton hypothesis, inflation need not be slow-roll, and if it is the inflaton generates a negligible curvature perturbation. We find that the construction of slow-roll inflation models becomes much easier under this hypothesis. Also, therma...

Volitional behaviors can be construed as “work” (extrinsically motivated) or as “fun” (intrinsically motivated). When volitional behaviors are construed as an obligation to work, completing the behavior depletes a consumer, and subsequent self-control becomes more difficult. When volitional behaviors are construed as an opportunity to have fun, completing the behavior vitalizes a consumer, and ...

Applications in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) in the notso-distant future include robots that collaborate with factory workers or serve us as caregivers or waitstaff. When offering customized functionality in these dynamic environments, robots need to engage in real-time exchanges with humans. Robots thus need to be capable of participating in smooth turn-taking interactions. The research goal ...