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What distinguishes a competent decision maker and how should the issue of decision quality be approached in a real-life context? These questions were explored in three studies. In Study 1, using a web-based questionnaire and targeting a community sample, we investigated the relationships between objective and subjective indicators of real-life decision-making success. In Study 2 and 3, targeting two different samples of professionals, we explored if the prevalent cognitively oriented definition of decision-making competence could be beneficially expanded by adding aspects of competence in terms of social skills and time-approach. The predictive power for each of these three aspects of decision-making competence was explored for different indicators of real-life decision-making success. Overall, our results suggest that research on decision-making competence would benefit by expanding the definition of competence, by including decision-related abilities in terms of social skills and time-approach. Finally, the results also indicate that individual differences in real-life decision-making success profitably can be approached and measured by different criteria. more...

One major drawback with using Sakai---Kasahara based identity-based secret keys is that it appears hard to distribute the trust of the key generation centre. For other types of identity based key this distribution can be done using non-interactive and simple techniques. In this short note we explain how this can be done for Sakai---Kasahara style keys using a simple application of a general technique from multi-party computation. The self-checking property of the resulting private key we show can be used to insulate the protocol from malicious adversaries for many practical parameter sizes. more...

Complex multi-user applications often require that some users (such as managers) have the ability to do things that other users (such as data-entry staff) do not. In this case study, well create a general-purpose system for keeping track of user privileges. This system can be applied to any type of PHP application in which users are individually identifiable. more...

FTP is one of the oldest and best-known Internet protocols. It is familiar to most web developers as a standard way to transfer files from one system to another. This chapter provides a complete overview of PHP’s FTP support by focusing on the practical aspects of using the FTP extension. more...

Object-oriented programming (OOP) has been around for quite some time. It began with Smalltalk and C++, and later on expanded to languages such as Java and Python. When it comes to building software applications, such as your favorite word processor or computer game, it’s no longer an optional language feature. It is the standard way for software architects to develop highly maintainable, complex, and scalable solutions used in both proprietary and open source software packages. more...

With the proliferation of TCP/IP-based networks and services accessible over these networks, the ways and means to access these services by other applications is of significant interest. PHP scripts are no exception to this trend. In this chapter we shall look at the functions that PHP provides for such access by building illustrative applications that utilize these functions. more...

A vital aspect of application development is developing interactive web applications to process user input. This involves using regular expressions to check the data in the forms filled in by the user. In this chapter we will look at: User input Forms to handle user input OOH forms library to help validate and render forms A sample application to define, validate, and render forms Regular expressions to validate or compare strings to a given pattern more...

Multi-tier development is a development process oriented to create software that is easy to maintain and integrate. As the various Apache and C libraries open themselves to PHP programmers, the time to start thinking multi-tier is now. more...

In the previous chapter, we looked at the basics of the Internet e-mail system and Usenet. We also demonstrated how to send e-mail and how to post news articles with PHP. You should be reasonably comfortable with the general concept of the e-mail system by now. As we mentioned in the previous chapter, however, retrieving e-mail messages or news articles in PHP is a lot trickier than sending or posting them. In this chapter, you’ll be introduced to additional e-mail protocols and more advanced concepts of e-mail and news. We’ll also look at how PHP provides e-mail and news retrieval capabilities with IMAP functions. Make sure you read the previous chapter first, which details the basics of the email system and Usenet. more...

One of the aspects of PHP often overlooked by the programmer is its ability to act as a command line interpreter through COM, CORBA, and the new PHP-GTK to create applications that present the user with a Graphical User Interface (GUI). There are many situations where PHP is the ideal choice to use as the language for the backend of a simple desktop GUI or interactive command line application. more...

E-mail has become part of our lives, but have you ever wondered how e-mail gets from your PC to somebody halfway around the globe? Your e-mail client program asks you to specify either a POP or an IMAP server as well as an SMTP server. What are they? How do they work in tandem to deliver, hold, and let you read your e-mail messages? You may think the Internet e-mail system is complex for you to fathom, but, as it turns out, it is an incredibly simple system at its core. The good news is, with PHP, creating applications that can send or receive e-mail messages and news is surprisingly easy. more...

In this paper, we describe a correction to the cryptosystem proposed in Damgard et al. from Int. J. Applied Cryptography, Vol. 1, No. 1. Although, the correction is small and does not affect the performance of the protocols from Damgard et al., it is necessary, as the cryptosystem is not secure without it. more...

We describe a versatile scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) integrated with a shear force (SF) sample probe separation controller. The system works with special tapered optical fibers as the probing element. These fibers are fabricated by using a technique proposed earlier by Ohtsu et al. [M. Ohtsu, Optoelectronic devices and technology, 10 (2) (1995) 147]. We describe here the SNOM system we developed giving details on the fabrication of the fibers. Then we show the first direct bi-dimensional mapping of the optical emission of these tips as measured by our system in an original 2 tip configuration mode. more...