EditorsTarek SobhEngineering and Computer ScienceUniversity of BridgeportBridgeport, CT, USA

Khaled ElleithyComputer Science and EngineeringUniversity of BridgeportBridgeport, CT, USA

ISSN 1876-1100 ISSN 1876-1119 (electronic)ISBN 978-3-319-06772-8 ISBN 978-3-319-06773-5 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06773-5Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014953842

# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material isconcerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproductionon microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronicadaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or materialsupplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by thepurchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of theCopyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained fromSpringer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations areliable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does notimply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws andregulations and therefore free for general use.While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither theauthors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may bemade. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

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Contents

Performance Improvement in Public Administrations

by Organizational Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Margareth Stoll and Dietmar Laner

From Information Security Management to Enterprise

Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Margareth Stoll

Information System Engineering Promotes Enterprise

Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Margareth Stoll and Dietmar Laner

Simulation Study on the Performance of Reactive and Position-Based

Routing Protocols in MANET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Khaldoon Al-Shouiliy, Raed Alsaqour, and Mueen Uddin

A New Approach for Buffer Queueing Evaluation Under

Network Flows with Multi-scale Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Jeferson Wilian de Godoy Stenico and Lee Luan Ling

Polynomial Compensation of Odd Symmetric Nonlinear Actuators

via Neural Network Modeling and Neural Network Describing Function . . . . . . . 39

O. Kuljaca, K. Horvat, J. Gadewadikar, and B. Tare

Stream Collision Management in MIMO Ad-Hoc Network Sustaining

the Lower Bound of QoS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Viktor Zaharov, Angel Lambertt, and Olena Polyanska

On Query-Based Search of Possible Design Flaws of SQL Databases . . . . . . . . . . 53

Erki Eessaar

An Architecture for Mobile Context Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chad Williams and Jisna Mathew

An Actuated Tail Increases Rapid Acceleration Manoeuvres

in Quadruped Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Amir Patel and M. Braae

PlantsVN: An User-Friendly Software for Creating and Managing

Personal Plant Database and for Plant Family Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Nguyen Van Sinh

An Automated Tool to Support the Software Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Fernando Uceda-Ponga and Gerardo Ayala-San Martin

A Low-Cost Force Measurement Solution Applicable

for Robotic Grippers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

R.V. Sharan and G.C. Onwubolu

ix

Analyzing Operating Systems’ Behavior to Crafted Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Thusith Abeykoon, Kasun Abeykoon, and Tirthankar Ghosh

An Access Control Model for a Grid Environment Employing

Security-as-a-Service Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

E.K. Olatunji, M.O. Adigun, and E. Jembere

Comparison of Collaborative-Filtering Techniques

for Small-Scale Student Performance Prediction Task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Stefan Pero and Tomas Horvath

Career Center System Software Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Taner Arsan, Safa Cimenli, and Erhan Gunes

Mobile Camera Source Identification with SVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

A.-R. Soobhany, K.P. Lam, P. Fletcher, and D.J. Collins

Comparison of Manual and Image Processing Methods

of End-Milling Burr Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

R.V. Sharan and G.C. Onwubolu

Automatic Image Annotation for Description of Urban

and Outdoor Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Claudia Cruz-Perez, Oleg Starostenko, Vicente Alarcon-Aquino,

and Jorge Rodriguez-Asomoza

Autonomous Mapping and Navigation Through Utilization

of Edge-Based Optical Flow and Time-to-Collision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Madhu Krishnan, Mike Wu, Young H. Kang, and Sarah Lee

NS2IT: Simplification of Computer Network Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Martin Nagy and Peter Magula

Survey on Decentralized Modular Robots and Control Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Tamer AbuKhalil, Tarek Sobh, and Madhav Patil

Utilising Fuzzy Rough Set Based on Mutual Information Decreasing

Method for Feature Reduction in an Image Retrieval System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Maryam Shahabi Lotfabadi, Mohd Fairuz Shiratuddin,

and Kok Wai Wong

IR-UWB with Multiple-Access Differential Detection Receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Walid Mahmoud

Digital System for the Study of Fast Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Florin Grofu and Constantin Cercel

A Location-Based Movie Advisor Application for Android Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Taner Arsan, Aykut Cay{r, Hande Nur Umur, Tugce Guney,

and Buke Panya

Eye Tracking and Head Movements Detection to Assist People

with Disabilities: Unveiled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Amer Al-Rahayfeh and Miad Faezipour

A Comparative Study of Simulation Based Performance Evaluation

of Routing Protocol for Ad-Hoc Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Ola Alsaqour, Raed Alsaqour, Tariq Alahdal, Rashid Saeed,

and Mohammed Al-Hubaishi

x Contents

Vulnerability Studies of E2E Voting Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Lauretha Rura, Biju Issac, and Manas Haldar

Reliability Assessment of an Intelligent Approach to Corporate

Sustainability Report Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Amir Mohammad Shahi, Biju Issac, and Jashua Rajesh Modapothala

Ubiquitous Text Transfer Using Sound a Zero-Infrastructure

Alternative for Simple Text Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Kuruvilla Mathew and Biju Issac

Web Based Testing in Science Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

M. Hostovecky, M. Misut, and K. Pribilova

Determination of Optimal Hyper- and Multispectral Image Channels

by Spectral Fractal Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Veronika Kozma-Bognar and Jozsef Berke

ICT as a Mean for Enhancing Flexibility and Quality of Mathematical

Subjects Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Maria Misutova and Martin Misut

Efficient High-Level Coding in a PLC to FPGA Translation

and Implementation Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Christoforos Economakos and George Economakos

Modeling a Cold Rolling Mill for Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Meshack M. Nzioki

Technological Development in Therapeutic Applications

of Alternating Electric Fields: Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

S. Talele

Multi-Touch Gesture Recognition Using Feature Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Francisco R. Ortega, Naphtali Rishe, Armando Barreto,

Fatemeh Abyarjoo, and Malek Adjouadi

Model Driven Testing for Cloud Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Jessica Oliveira, Denivaldo Lopes, Zair Abdelouahab,

Daniela Claro, and Slimane Hammoudi

Implementing a Sensor Fusion Algorithm for 3D Orientation

Detection with Inertial/Magnetic Sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Fatemeh Abyarjoo, Armando Barreto, Jonathan Cofino,

and Francisco R. Ortega

Introducing Problem-Based Learning in a Joint Masters Degree:

Offshoring Information Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Vincent Ribaud and Philippe Saliou

Composition of Learning Routes Using Automatic Planning

and Web Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Ingrid-Durley Torres and Jaime Alberto Guzman-Luna

A Novel Dual-Error Approach to System Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

H. Greeff

On Verification of the Software Development Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Deniss Kumlander

Contents xi

Control-Flow Checking Using Binary Encoded Software Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . 345

H. Severınova, J. Abaffy, and T. Krajcovic

Transformation of the Software Testing Glossary

into a Browsable Concept Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Guntis Arnicans and Uldis Straujums

Metallographic Image Processing Tools Using Mathematica Manipulate . . . . . . . 357

Sara McCaslin and Adarsh Kesireddy

Using Mathematica to Accurately Approximate the Percent

Area of Grains and Phases in Digital Metallographic Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Adarsh Kesireddy and Sara McCaslin

Real-Time Indexing of Complex Data Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Petr Chmelar, Michal Drozd, Michal Sebek, and Jaroslav Zendulka

Self-Organized Teams: A Contradictory Technique

to Motivate Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Deniss Kumlander

Pre-MEGa: A Proposed Framework for the Design and Evaluation

of Preschoolers’ Mobile Educational Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Laila Shoukry, Christian Sturm, and Galal H. Galal-Edeen

A Review on Three Dimensional Facial Averaging for the Assessment

of Orthodontic Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Syed M.S. Islam, Mithran S. Goonewardene, and Mauro Farella

Reducing Stereotypes of Women in Technology Through Analysis

of Videogame Blog Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Reva Freedman and Georgia Brown

Improving Student Learning While Converting a Computer

Architecture Course to Online Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Reva Freedman

Bioclimatic Modelling: A Machine Learning Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Maumita Bhattacharya

nFTP: An Approach to Improve Performance of FTP Protocol

on the Virtual Network Environment in the Same Physical Host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Nguyen Tan Cam, Huynh Van Tho, Nguyen Hoang Sang, and Cao Dang Tan

Hardware Architecture Review of Swarm Robotics System:

Self Reconfigurability, Self Reassembly and Self Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Madhav Patil, Tamer Abukhalil, Sarosh Patel, and Tarek Sobh

Internet and Transdisciplinary Based Teamwork Formula

for Elaborating a Bachelor’s or a Master’s Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Liciniu A. Kovacs and Mihai F. Talpos

A Dynamic Pricing Algorithm for Super Scheduling

of Computational Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Reihaneh Bazoubandi and Fatemeh Abdoli

A Comparative Analysis of Bayesian Nonparametric Inference

Algorithms for Acoustic Modeling in Speech Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

John Steinberg, Amir Harati, and Joseph Picone

xii Contents

Requirements Based Estimation Approach for System

Engineering Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Radek Silhavy, Petr Silhavy, and Zdenka Prokopova

Improvement of the Time Calculation of Cloud Radiance

of One Atmosphere by the Method TDMAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

Bouya Diop, Adoum M. Moussa, and Abdou K. Farota

Process of Transformation, Storage and Data Analysis

for Data Mart Enlargement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Zdenka Prokopova, Petr Silhavy, and Radek Silhavy

Exact Algorithm for Matrix-Based Multilevel

Project Planning Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Zsolt T. Kosztyan

Operation of a Microgrid System with Distributed Energy

Resources and Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Linfeng Zhang, Xingguo Xiong, and Junling Hu

The SOC Estimation of a Lead Acid Rechargeable Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503

Linfeng Zhang and Xingguo Xiong

Fast Computation of Frobenius Map Iterates in Optimal

Extension Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Walid Mahmoud

Product Owner Responsibilities in the Project Assurance Process:

Bridging Uncertainties Gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

D. Kumlander

Micro Design and Value Analysis. The Selection

of the Material for Die . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

Florin Chichernea and Ana Veteleanu

The Internet of Things in Community Safety and Crime

Prevention for South Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

Nomusa Dlodlo, Paul Mbecke, Mofolo Mofolo, and Martin Mhlanga

Research Trends in Existing Technologies that are Building Blocks

to the Internet of Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539

Nomusa Dlodlo, Mofolo Mofolo, Lionel Masoane,

Stanley Mncwabe, George Sibiya, and Lawrence Mboweni

Efficient Partitioning and Allocation of Data for Workload Queries . . . . . . . . . . . 549

Annamaria V. Kish, John R. Rose, and Csilla Farkas

Toward the Automatic Construction of Strategic Plans

Based on Ontologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557

Liliana Ibeth Barbosa-Santillan, Jose Pablo Nuno-de-la-Parra,

Juan Jaime Sanchez-Escobar, and Carlos Arturo Vega-Lebrun

E-Learning Environments: Actor Network Theoretic Inspirations

into Localized Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Ashoka Jayawardena

Educational Tools: A Review of Interfaces of Mobile-Augmented

Reality (mAR) Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

Siti Salmi Jamali, Mohd Fairuz Shiratuddin, and Kok Wai Wong

Contents xiii

Automatic Extraction of Relationships Among Software Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

Asma Hachemi and Mohamed Ahmed-Nacer

Smart Email: Almost An Agent Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Magdalena Godlewska and Bogdan Wiszniewski

Improving Trace Analysis Using Ontologies for Hardware Resourcing . . . . . . . . . 591

Manuel Corona-Perez, Gerardo Padilla-Zarate,

and Liliana Ibeth Barbosa Santillan

An Energy Efficient Self-healing Mechanism for Long Life

Wireless Sensor Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599

Dame Diongue and Ousmane Thiare

Novel Steganography over HTML Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Ammar Odeh, Khaled Elleithy, Miad Faezipour, and Eman Abdelfattah

Secure Cost Effective M-Learning Through Cloud Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

K. Kartheeban and M. Venkatesulu

A Multi-Level Privacy Scheme for Securing Data

in a Cloud Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623

Ezekiel K. Olatunji, Matthew O. Adigun, and Paul Tarwireyi

xiv Contents

PlantsVN: An User-Friendly Software for Creatingand Managing Personal Plant Databaseand for Plant Family Identification

Nguyen Van Sinh

Abstract

PlantsVN is a software that combines the plant database functions with the utility of family

identification of plant specimen. PlantsVN allows users to create and manage personal

plant database and identify plant specimen. Apart from the software accompanied key, the

users can easily create own keys using the key file child window. The result of the

identification is documented by displaying all the taxa of the plant database matched

with the characters of the plant specimen.

This paper describes the technique of integrating the plant identification utility into the

plant database software that has been used in PlantsVN-software. The paper also document

on the functionality of the PlantsVN-software that is free available at the website of the

Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technol-

ogy (http://iebr.ac.vn/pages/1PlantsVN.asp).

Keywords

User-Friendly software � Personal plant database � Plant family identification

Introduction

There is a wide range of plant databases. A plant database

can be large and include plants of a region [7], or of a whole

country [12]. But a plant database can also be created for an

arboretum [6]. The plant databases are useful not only for

management of plant resources of various types but also for

research and education, as the browsing through a plant

database give us much information.

There are also many softwares for plant identification, but

not all of them are dedicated to work with a database. An

example is the internet based system for world wide

flowering plant family identification developed by Ray Phil-

lips at Colby College [8]. Following are the two softwares

that can be embedded to a plant database.

The INTKEYofM.J. Dallwitz, T.A. Paine and E.J. Zurcher

at CSIRO Division of Entomology [2, 3, 5] is an interactive

program for identifying a specimen by comparing it with

stored description. It works also with an database. However,

in order to create keys for this software, the users have to learn

the DELTA system that is rather complicated [1].

The SLIKS of Gerald F. Guala [4] is a Javascript program

for integrating into websites. SLIKS is being used on USDA

website with keys for several plant groups. However, to use

SLIKS the users have to know Java Script in order to create

data file [11], what is not the case for many botanists.

PlantsVN has been developed under the concept of intelli-

gent plant database and allows the user to either create and

manage plant database and to identify plant specimen. This

conceptmeans to combine the plant database functionswith the

utility of plant specimen identification in a database software.

Nevertheless, the software is very user-friendly. Even creating

the keys for PlantsVN is almost as easy as typing plain text.

This paper describes the technique of integrating the plant

identification utility into the plant database software that has

been used in PlantsVN-software. The paper also document on

N. Van Sinh (*)

Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, Vietnam Academy

of Science and Technology, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, Nghia Do,

Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam

e-mail: vansinh.nguyen@iebr.ac.vn

T. Sobh and K. Elleithy (eds.), Innovations and Advances in Computing, Informatics,Systems Sciences, Networking and Engineering, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 313,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06773-5_11, # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

77

the functionality of the PlantsVN-software that is free avail-

able at the website of the Institute of Ecology and Biological

Resources, VietnamAcademy of Science and Technology [9].

Material and Methods

Delphi XE Professional Workstation ESD (item number:

2010111885211109) of the Embarcadero company [10] has

been used to create PlantsVN computer program.

The basic unit of the database is plant picture, PlantsVN

uses an array of records to hold information of pictures with

following fields: Division, Class, Order, Family, Genus,

Species, Picture. Html is the format that PlantsVN uses to

displays the database records. In the html file, there are links

to text and image (.jpg) files for each taxon that is higher

ordered than species (Division, Class, Order, Family,

Genus). The users create these files and copy them to the

application folder in order to use these links in html.

The format for the text file name is as follows:

TaxonName_E.txt

The format for the image file name is as follows:

TaxonName.jpg

Editing database means changing information of the

records. Updating database adds records to the database

array. Deleting will erase records from database array.

The identification method in PlantsVN is to compare the

user input characters with character sets of taxons stored in

key file (*.ide). For the key that accompanies the software,

there is a dialog box for user to check specimen characters.

For the keys made by users, PlantsVN displays a dialog box

with two list boxes for user to choose specimen characters.

The identification result is a list of one or more families that

have all the characters of the specimen.

The users can create their own identification keys in a text

child window called ‘Key file child window’ and store them

in a file with the extention ‘.ide’. The format for the identifi-

cation key file of plant families is as follows:

Plant_family_name ¼ \\character1\\character2\\. . .charactern\\

The interaction between identification utility and the

database is realized as follows: After identification process,

PlantsVN searches records of the database that belong to

plant family (or families) in the identification result list,

create a html file of them (_plantsVN.html) and display it.

User Interface of PlantsVN

Symbols and Declared File Formats of PlantsVN

The PlantsVN software has the symbol of a

plant leaf, this symbol is assigned to the application file

(PlantsVN.exe):

PlantsVN declared following two file formats:

1. The database file format: the file extension is ‘.plt’; the

symbol is:

2. The identification key file: the extension is ‘.ide’; the

symbol is:

Once the PlantsVN software has been installed with using

installation file, double clicking on a database file name

(*.plt) in Windows Explorer of Microsoft Corporation will

cause PlantsVN starting with opening the file.

The Main Window

Main window of PlantsVN (Fig. 1) has a menu bar and a tool

bar. The menu items and their functions are presented in the

Table 1. The buttons and their functions are presented in

the Table 2. The html-file of database records is displayed

in this window.

Key File Child Window

Key file child window (Fig. 2) is a text editor and is dedi-

cated for processing the key file. Each line consists of all

characters of a plant family and begins with the name of the

plant family. Following the name of the plant family are two

characters: ‘¼\\’. After that are the descriptive characters of

the plant family. Each descriptive character ends with an

double backslash ‘\\’.

Working with Database

To work with database we have at first to open it by choosing

‘Open database’ menu item or clicking on the relevant

button. In the installation package there is an initial database

file ‘347.plt’. The main name of the database file is the

number of records. The initial database file consists of 347

records of 347 families.

To add a new record, we choose the relevant menu

item and fill in the text boxes in the appeared dialog box

(Fig. 3).

To delete a record, we choose the relevant menu item

and select the record number, then click the OK-button

(Fig. 4). Once a record is deleted, the associated with it

picture is also deleted.

To edit record, we choose the relevant menu and choose

the record in the appeared dialog box (Fig. 5) by changing

record number, then edit the information in text boxes.

78 N. Van Sinh

Fig. 1 Main window of

PlantsVN

Table 1 Menu items of PlantsVN

Menu/Submenu

item Function

Open database Open a database file (.plt)

Display database

structure

Display the dialog box with

structure of database

Add a record Display a dialog box for adding a

new record to the database

Edit a record Display a dialog box with a record

for editing

Delete a record Display a dialog box for selecting

and deleting a record

Statistics of the

whole database

Display a dialog box with statistics

on number of taxons of the whole

database

Statistics of the

selected records

Display a dialog box with statistics

on number of taxons of the

selected records

Identification

of flowering plants

families

Display a dialog box with

characters, user can check the

characters of his specimen to

identify family

New key file child

window

Open a text window so that user

can open and edit a key file or

compile a new key

Identification with

key file

Open a key file and show

characters in dialog box, user can

choose the characters of his

specimen to identify family

Create and display

html from database

Create a html file of all records and

display it

Fit the picture to

window

Click to check or uncheck, if

checked the picture will be fitted to

window

Computer system

info

Display the information of the

computer system in a dialog box

About Display information about the

author of the software

Table 2 Buttons on the toolbar of PlantsVN

Button Function

Open a database file (.plt)

Switch on/off the database

browsing mode

The first: Select the record

The second: Scale the picture

Switch on/off browsing pictures

of a species

Display the dialog box with

structure of database

Display a dialog box with characters,

user can check the characters

of his specimen to identify family

Open a key file and show characters

in dialog box, user can choose

the characters of his specimen

to identify family

Create a html file of all records

and display it

In html mode: go to previous page

PlantsVN: An User-Friendly Software for Creating and Managing Personal Plant. . . 79

To look at the database structure we choose the menu

item ‘Display database structure’ or click on the relevant

button. In the appeared dialog box, we can choose to see

different taxons (Fig. 6). Once we click on one taxon, the

next lower ordered taxons will be displayed in the next

column.

Click on the name of a taxon and then click on the column

name on the top of the column (Division, Class, Order,

Family, Genus or Family), PlantsVN will display all its

lower ordered taxons in html-format (Fig. 7).

In order to browse through pictures of a species, we

double click on its name in the last column of the database

structure dialog box. The first picture of the species will be

displayed in the main window (Fig. 8). After that we click on

the ‘Browse species pictures’ button to change the pictures.

While browsing pictures of a species, we can change their

size (by using the relevant button) and move them around

using the mouse (by keeping mouse down and moving it).

To switch on the database browsing mode we click on

the relevant button. While being in this mode, we can

use the relevant up-down button to change the records.

Once a record is selected, the taxon information will be

displayed in the title bar and the associated picture will be

displayed in the main window. We can change the picture

size and move it around like during browsing pictures of

a species.

Fig. 2 Key file child window

for key file processing

Fig. 3 Dialog box for adding

records

80 N. Van Sinh

We can get statistics either for the whole database or for

the selected records by choosing relevant menu. The results

will be displayed in a dialog box (Fig. 9).

Identifying Plant Specimen

When we choose the menu ‘Identification of flowering

plant families’ or click on the relevant button, a dialog box

with check-button-characters will appear (Fig. 10). Click to

check the characters that the specimen has, then click on

the OK-button, the matched taxons will be displayed in

html-format. This procedure is applied only for the software

accompanied key.

Choosing the menu ‘Identification with key file’ or clicking

on relevant button will cause the PlantsVN displaying the

dialog box for identification with key file (Fig. 11).

In order to work with a key file, we click on the Open

button on this dialog box and choose the key file in the

Fig. 4 Dialog box for deleting

records

Fig. 5 Dialog box for editing

records

PlantsVN: An User-Friendly Software for Creating and Managing Personal Plant. . . 81

Fig. 6 Displaying database structure dialog box

Fig. 7 Displaying the lower

ordered taxons of Typhales

Fig. 8 Browsing pictures

of Typha angustifolia

appeared open file dialog box. PlantsVN will open the file,

display all the characters of the key file in the left list box.

We choose the characters that match our specimen and click

the arrow button to transfer them to the right list box. After

that we click on OK-button to order PlantsVN to finish the

identification process. If records have been selected before

(by choosing taxon, or even by identification), we can order

the PlantsVN to search matched taxons only from these

records by checking the check-button at the bottom of the

dialog box.

Discussion and Conclusions

A personal database with integrated identification utility

might be very useful for the people involved with plants.

Creating, updating and browsing a plant database are

helpful for remembering the species, however referencing

the database with using integrated identification utility

might contribute more to the success of plant studies.

That is why PlantsVN might be useful for students and

plant scientists.

Most keys are now created for the plant taxons in the form

of dichotomous key. But dichotomous keys are less flexible

than polyclave ones. One of the reasons might be the lack of

a user-friendly tool for creating and using polyclave keys.

Regarding these reasons PlantsVN might be useful for plant

taxonomists.

Acknowledgement The Vietnam Academy of Science and Technol-

ogy has supported this work through the project VAST04.08/13-14.

Fig. 10 Dialog box for identification of plant families

Fig. 9 Statistics results

PlantsVN: An User-Friendly Software for Creating and Managing Personal Plant. . . 83

References

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Fig. 11 Identification with key file

84 N. Van Sinh