An information security model based on trustworthiness for enhancing security in on-line collaborative learning

L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi és incorporar propietats i serveis de la seguretat en sistemes d'informació en l'aprenentatge col·laboratiu en línia, seguint un model funcional basat en la valoració i predicció de la confiança. Aquesta tesi estableix com a punt de partença el disseny d'una solució de seguretat innovadora, basada en una metodologia pròpia per a oferir als dissenyadors i gestors de l'e-learning les línies mestres per a incorporar mesures de seguretat en l'aprenentatge col·laboratiu en línia. Aquestes guies cobreixen tots els aspectes sobre el disseny i la gestió que s'han de considerar en els processos relatius a l'e-learning, entre altres l'anàlisi de seguretat, el disseny d'activitats d'aprenentatge, la detecció d'accions anòmales o el processament de dades sobre confiança. La temàtica d'aquesta tesi té una naturalesa multidisciplinària i, al seu torn, les diferents disciplines que la formen estan íntimament relacionades. Les principals disciplines de què es tracta en aquesta tesi són l'aprenentatge col·laboratiu en línia, la seguretat en sistemes d'informació, els entorns virtuals d'aprenentatge (EVA) i la valoració i predicció de la confiança. Tenint en compte aquest àmbit d'aplicació, el problema de garantir la seguretat en els processos d'aprenentatge col·laboratiu en línia es resol amb un model híbrid construït sobre la base de solucions funcionals i tecnològiques, concretament modelatge de la confiança i solucions tecnològiques per a la seguretat en sistemes d'informació.El principal objetivo de esta tesis es incorporar propiedades y servicios de la seguridad en sistemas de información en el aprendizaje colaborativo en línea, siguiendo un modelo funcional basado en la valoración y predicción de la confianza. Esta tesis establece como punto de partida el diseño de una solución de seguridad innovadora, basada en una metodología propia para ofrecer a los diseñadores y gestores del e-learning las líneas maestras para incorporar medidas de seguridad en el aprendizaje colaborativo en línea. Estas guías cubren todos los aspectos sobre el diseño y la gestión que hay que considerar en los procesos relativos al e-learning, entre otros el análisis de la seguridad, el diseño de actividades de aprendizaje, la detección de acciones anómalas o el procesamiento de datos sobre confianza. La temática de esta tesis tiene una naturaleza multidisciplinar y, a su vez, las diferentes disciplinas que la forman están íntimamente relacionadas. Las principales disciplinas tratadas en esta tesis son el aprendizaje colaborativo en línea, la seguridad en sistemas de información, los entornos virtuales de aprendizaje (EVA) y la valoración y predicción de la confianza. Teniendo en cuenta este ámbito de aplicación, el problema de garantizar la seguridad en los procesos de aprendizaje colaborativo en línea se resuelve con un modelo híbrido construido en base a soluciones funcionales y tecnológicas, concretamente modelado de la confianza y soluciones tecnológicas para la seguridad en sistemas de información.This thesis' main goal is to incorporate information security properties and services into online collaborative learning using a functional approach based on trustworthiness assessment and prediction. As a result, this thesis aims to design an innovative security solution, based on methodological approaches, to provide e-learning designers and managers with guidelines for incorporating security into online collaborative learning. These guidelines include all processes involved in e-learning design and management, such as security analysis, learning activity design, detection of anomalous actions, trustworthiness data processing, and so on. The subject of this research is multidisciplinary in nature, with the different disciplines comprising it being closely related. The most significant ones are online collaborative learning, information security, learning management systems (LMS), and trustworthiness assessment and prediction models. Against this backdrop, the problem of securing collaborative online learning activities is tackled by a hybrid model based on functional and technological solutions, namely, trustworthiness modelling and information security technologies

Monitoring and detection of agitation in dementia: towards real-time and big-data solutions

The changing demographic profile of the population has potentially challenging social, geopolitical, and financial consequences for individuals, families, the wider society, and governments globally. The demographic change will result in a rapidly growing elderly population with healthcare implications which importantly include Alzheimer type conditions (a leading cause of dementia). Dementia requires long term care to manage the negative behavioral symptoms which are primarily exhibited in terms of agitation and aggression as the condition develops. This paper considers the nature of dementia along with the issues and challenges implicit in its management. The Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) are introduced with factors (precursors) to the onset of agitation and aggression. Independent living is considered, health monitoring and implementation in context-aware decision-support systems is discussed with consideration of data analytics. Implicit in health monitoring are technical and ethical constraints, we briefly consider these constraints with the ability to generalize to a range of medical conditions. We postulate that health monitoring offers exciting potential opportunities however the challenges lie in the effective realization of independent assisted living while meeting the ethical challenges, achieving this remains an open research question remains.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

'NoSQL' and electronic patient record systems: opportunities and challenges

(c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Research into electronic health record systems can be traced back over four decades however the penetration of records which incorporate more than simply basic information into healthcare organizations is relatively limited. There is a great (and largely unsatisfied) demand for effective health record systems, such systems are very difficult to build with data generally stored in highly distributed states in a diverse range of formats as unstructured data with access and updating achieved over online systems. Internet application design must reflect three trends in the computing landscape: (1) growing numbers of users applications must support (along with growing user performance expectations), (2) growth in the volume and range and diversity in the data that developers accommodate, and (3) and the rise of Cloud Computing (which relies on a distributed three-tier Internet architecture). The traditional approach to data storage has generally employed Relational Database Systems however to address the evolving paradigm interest has been shown in alternative database systems including 'NoSQL' technologies which are gaining traction in Internet based enterprise systems. This paper considers the requirements of distributed health record systems in online applications and database systems. The analysis supports the conclusion that 'NoSQL' database systems provide a potentially useful approach to the implementation of HR systems in online applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

An adaptive event-based system for anytime, anywhere, awareness services in online teamworks

The fast development in mobile technologies is drastically changing the way people work, learn, collaborate and socialise. One such important activity that has emerged and is being consolidated more each time is the online learning through virtual campuses. While most of online learning services are at present offered through web-based platforms, due to ever-increasing use of smart devices such as smartphones and tablets, researchers and developers are paying attention to exploit the advantages of mobile systems to support online learning. Specifically, the implementation of the A3 paradigm: anytime, anywhere, awareness - that is, notifying users about ongoing activity in their online workspace - provides various advantages to online learners organised in online teams. In this paper, we present the requirement analysis, the building blocks of the architecture for efficient event-based system and a prototype implementation of the A3 paradigm that adaptively supports the online collaborative activity.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Meta-scheduling Issues in Interoperable HPCs, Grids and Clouds

Over the last years, interoperability among resources has been emerged as one of the most challenging research topics. However, the commonality of the complexity of the architectures (e.g., heterogeneity) and the targets that each computational paradigm including HPC, grids and clouds aims to achieve (e.g., flexibility) remain the same. This is to efficiently orchestrate resources in a distributed computing fashion by bridging the gap among local and remote participants. Initially, this is closely related with the scheduling concept which is one of the most important issues for designing a cooperative resource management system, especially in large scale settings such as in grids and clouds. Within this context, meta-scheduling offers additional functionalities in the area of interoperable resource management, this is because of its great agility to handle sudden variations and dynamic situations in user demands. Accordingly, the case of inter-infrastructures, including InterCloud, entitle that the decentralised meta-scheduling scheme overcome issues like consolidated administration management, bottleneck and local information exposition. In this work, we detail the fundamental issues for developing an effective interoperable meta-scheduler for e-infrastructures in general and InterCloud in particular. Finally, we describe a simulation and experimental configuration based on real grid workload traces to demonstrate the interoperable setting as well as provide experimental results as part of a strategic plan for integrating future meta-schedulers

Emerging technologies for monitoring behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia

(c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are complex array of symptoms that have devastating impact on patients, carers and their loved ones. In this paper we argue that with the combined use of pervasive computing and big data, we could make significant progress in the diagnosis of the causes of BPSD, monitoring response to treatment and helping in the prevention of these symptoms. We review the available technologies, such as Cloud computing and context aware systems, and how they could help in managing and hopefully preventing the Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Specification and unattended deployment of home networks at the edge of the network

Consumer devices continue to expand their capabilities by connecting to digital services and other devices to form information-sharing ecosystems. This is complex and requires meeting connection requirements and minimal processing capabilities to ensure communication. The emergence of new services, and the evolution of current technologies, constantly redefine the rules of the game by opening up new possibilities and increasing competition among service providers. Paradigms such as edge computing, softwarization of physical devices, self-configuration mechanisms, definition of software as a code and interoperability between devices, define design principles to be taken into account in future service infrastructures. This work analyzes these principles and presents a programmable architecture in which services and virtual devices are instantiated in any computing infrastructure, as cloud or edge computing, upon request according to the needs specified by service providers or users. Considering that the target computing infrastructures are heterogeneous, the solution defines network elements and provides network templates to ensure it can be deployed on different infrastructures irrespectively of the vendor. A prototype has been developed and tested on a virtualized cloud-based home network relying on open source solutions.This work was supported in part by the Project MAGOS under Grant TEC2017-84197- C4-1-R; in part by the Comunidad de Madrid (Spain) through the Project CYNAMON under Grant P2018/TCS-4566; and in part by the European Structural Funds (ESF and FEDER)

Modern approaches to modeling user requirements on resource and task allocation in hierarchical computational grids

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Design and implementation of testbed using IoT and P2P technologies: improving reliability by a fuzzy-based approach

The internet of things (IoT) is a new type of internet application which enables the objects to be active participants with other members of the network. In P2P systems, each peer has to obtain information of other peers and propagate the information through neighbouring peers. However, in reality, each peer might be faulty or might send incorrect information. In our previous work, we implemented a P2P platform called JXTA-overlay, which provides a set of basic functionalities, primitives, intended to be as complete as possible to satisfy the needs of most JXTA-based applications. In this paper, we present the implementation of a testbed using IoT and P2P technologies. We also present two fuzzy-based systems (FPRS1 and FPRS2) to improve the reliability of the proposed approach. Comparing the complexity of FPRS1 and FPRS2, the FPRS2 is more complex than FPRS1. However, FPRS2 makes the platform more reliable.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Integrating secure mobile P2P systems and Wireless Sensor Networks

Aquesta tesi tracta de les diferents limitacions trobades a WSN per a habilitar-ne el desplegament en nous escenaris i facilitar la difusió de la informació obtinguda. A un nivell baix, ens centrem en el consum d'energia, mentre que, a un nivell més alt, ens focalitzem en la difusió i la seguretat de la informació. Reduïm el consum d'una mote individual en xarxes amb patrons de trànsit dinàmic mitjançant la definició d'una funció de planificació basada en el conegut controlador PID i allarguem la vida d'una WSN globalment distribuint equitativament el consum energètic de totes les motes, disminuint el nombre d'intervencions necessàries per a canviar bateries i el cost associat. Per tal d'afavorir la difusió de la informació provinent d'una WSN, hem proposat jxSensor, una capa d'integració entre les WSN i el conegut sistema P2P JXTA. Com que tractem informació sensible, hem proposat una capa d'anonimat a JXTA i un mecanisme d'autenticació lleuger per a la seva versió mòbil.Esta tesis trata las diferentes limitaciones encontradas en WSN para habilitar su despliegue en nuevos escenarios, así como facilitar la diseminación de la información obtenida. A bajo nivel, nos centramos en el consumo de energía, mientras que, a un nivel más alto, nos focalizamos en la diseminación y seguridad de la información. Reducimos el consumo de una mota individual en redes con patrones de tráfico dinámico mediante la definición de una función de planificación basada en el conocido controlador PID y alargamos la vida de una WSN globalmente distribuyendo equitativamente el consumo energético de todas las motas, disminuyendo el número de intervenciones requeridas para cambiar baterías y su coste asociado. Para favorecer la diseminación de la información procedente de una WSN hemos propuesto jxSensor, una capa de integración entre las WSN y el conocido sistema P2P JXTA. Como estamos tratando con información sensible, hemos propuesto una capa de anonimato en JXTA y un mecanismo de autenticación ligero para su versión móvil.This thesis addresses different limitations found in WSNs in order to enable their deployment in new scenarios as well as to make it easier to disseminate the gathered information. At a lower level, we concentrate on energy consumption while, at a higher level, we focus on the dissemination and security of information. The consumption of an individual mote in networks with dynamic traffic patterns is reduced by defining a scheduling function based on the well-known PID controller. Additionally, the life of a WSN is extended by equally distributing the consumption of all the motes, which reduces the number of interventions required to replace batteries as well as the associated cost. To help the dissemination of information coming from a WSN we have proposed jxSensor, which is an integration layer between WSNs and the well-known JXTA P2P system. As we are dealing with sensitive information, we have proposed an anonymity layer in JXTA and a light authentication method in its mobile version