1,811 research outputs found

    Secure storage systems for untrusted cloud environments

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    The cloud has become established for applications that need to be scalable and highly available. However, moving data to data centers owned and operated by a third party, i.e., the cloud provider, raises security concerns because a cloud provider could easily access and manipulate the data or program flow, preventing the cloud from being used for certain applications, like medical or financial. Hardware vendors are addressing these concerns by developing Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) that make the CPU state and parts of memory inaccessible from the host software. While TEEs protect the current execution state, they do not provide security guarantees for data which does not fit nor reside in the protected memory area, like network and persistent storage. In this work, we aim to address TEEsā€™ limitations in three different ways, first we provide the trust of TEEs to persistent storage, second we extend the trust to multiple nodes in a network, and third we propose a compiler-based solution for accessing heterogeneous memory regions. More specifically, ā€¢ SPEICHER extends the trust provided by TEEs to persistent storage. SPEICHER implements a key-value interface. Its design is based on LSM data structures, but extends them to provide confidentiality, integrity, and freshness for the stored data. Thus, SPEICHER can prove to the client that the data has not been tampered with by an attacker. ā€¢ AVOCADO is a distributed in-memory key-value store (KVS) that extends the trust that TEEs provide across the network to multiple nodes, allowing KVSs to scale beyond the boundaries of a single node. On each node, AVOCADO carefully divides data between trusted memory and untrusted host memory, to maximize the amount of data that can be stored on each node. AVOCADO leverages the fact that we can model network attacks as crash-faults to trust other nodes with a hardened ABD replication protocol. ā€¢ TOAST is based on the observation that modern high-performance systems often use several different heterogeneous memory regions that are not easily distinguishable by the programmer. The number of regions is increased by the fact that TEEs divide memory into trusted and untrusted regions. TOAST is a compiler-based approach to unify access to different heterogeneous memory regions and provides programmability and portability. TOAST uses a load/store interface to abstract most library interfaces for different memory regions

    Exploring the Relationship between Nurse Supervisorā€™s Servant Leadership Behavior and Nursing Employeeā€™s Self-Assessment of Engagement and Burnout in Nigeria

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    Burnout is a problem among workers in Nigeria, especially among nurses (Ozumba, & Alabere, 2019). This study examined whether there was a significant relationship between the employee perception of the servant leadership behaviors of the nurse supervisor and the employeeā€™s self-rating of burnout: exhaustion and disengagement, and servant leadership behaviors of the nurse supervisor, and engagement: vigor, dedication, and absorption. Exhaustion refers to an intensive physical, affective, and cognitive strain while disengagement refers to the distancing of oneself from oneā€™s work, and experiencing negative attitudes toward the work object, work content, or oneā€™s work in general (Demerouti et al., 2001). Vigor is characterized by high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in oneā€™s work, and persistence even in the face of difficulties. Dedication refers to being strongly involved in one\u27s work and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge. Absorption is characterized by being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in oneā€™s work, whereby time passes quickly, and one has difficulties with detaching oneself from work (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003). The study also examined if employees at an institution that explicitly endorses the principles of servant leadership behaviors of the supervisor would score higher in vigor, dedication, and absorption and score lower on exhaustion and disengagement. The study took place at three university teaching hospitals in Nigeria: Lagos University Teaching Hospital (172 participants), University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu (172 participants), and University of Port-Harcourt Teaching Hospital (154 participants). There were 498 participants in the study. Most of the study participants were female (463, 93.0%), while the rest were male (35, 7.0%). This reflected the national average concerning gender of the nursing population in Nigeria. The study utilized already validated psychometric instruments: Lindenā€™s Servant Leadership Scale 7, to measure the servant leadership behaviors of the supervisor. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale was used to measure employee work engagement, and the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory was used to measure the burnout of the employees. This study found a small significant negative correlation between the employee perception of the servant leadership scale and employee burnout: exhaustion and disengagement. It also found a small positive significant relationship between employee perception of the servant leadership behaviors of the supervisor and employee engagement: vigor, dedication, and absorption among the study participants. However, more servant leadership behaviors did not result in less burnout or more work engagement

    Secondary Studentsā€™ Career Development Phenomenarratives

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    Career education and guidance can support the development of secondary students as they aspire toward their life goals. This research explored the lived experiences of three young people through the creation of phenomenarratives. A narrative co-reflection process was developed as part of the studentsā€™ personalised career guidance planning. Findings indicated the importance of career education that supports personalised and holistic learning experiences to develop studentsā€™ self-awareness, work skills, networks and confidence in their future direction

    Gratitude in Healthcare an interdisciplinary inquiry

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    The expression and reception of gratitude is a significant dimension of interpersonal communication in care-giving relationships. Although there is a growing body of evidence that practising gratitude has health and wellbeing benefits for the giver and receiver, gratitude as a social emotion made in interaction has received comparatively little research attention. To address this gap, this thesis draws on a portfolio of qualitative methods to explore the ways in which gratitude is constituted in care provision in personal, professional, and public discourse. This research is informed by a discursive psychology approach in which gratitude is analysed, not as a morally virtuous character trait, but as a purposeful, performative social action that is mutually co-constructed in interaction.I investigate gratitude through studies that approach it on a meta, meso, macro, and micro level. Key intellectual traditions that underpin research literature on gratitude in healthcare are explored through a metanarrative review. Six underlying metanarratives were identified: social capital; gifts; care ethics; benefits of gratitude; staff wellbeing; and gratitude as an indicator of quality of care. At the meso (institutional) level, a narrative analysis of an archive of letters between patients treated for tuberculosis and hospital almoners positions gratitude as participating in a Maussian gift-exchange ritual in which communal ties are created and consolidated.At the macro (societal) level, a discursive analysis of tweets of gratitude to the National Health Service at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic shows that attitudes to gratitude were dynamic in response to events, with growing unease about deflecting attention from risk reduction for those working in the health and social care sectors. A follow-up analysis of the clap-for-carers movement implicates gratitude in embodied, symbolic, and imagined performances in debates about care justice. At the micro (interpersonal) level, an analysis of gratitude encounters broadcast in the BBC documentary series, Hospital, uses pragmatics and conversation analysis to argue that gratitude is an emotion made in talk, with the uptake of gratitude opportunities influencing the course of conversational sequencing. The findings challenge the oftenmade distinction between task-oriented and relational conversation in healthcare.Moral economics are paradigmatic in the philosophical conceptualisation of gratitude. My research shows that, although balance-sheet reciprocity characterised the institutional culture of the voluntary hospital, it is hardly ever a feature ofinterpersonal gratitude encounters. Instead, gratitude is accomplished as shared moments of humanity through negotiated encounters infused with affect. Gratitude should never be instrumentalised as compensating for unsafe, inadequatelyrenumerated work. Neither should its potential to enhance healthcare encounters be underestimated. Attention to gratitude can participate in culture change by affirming modes of acting, emoting, relating, expressing, and connecting that intersect with care justice.This thesis speaks to gratitude as a culturally salient indicator of what people express as worthy of appreciation. It calls for these expressions to be more closely attended to, not only as useful feedback that can inform change, but also because gratitude is a resource on which we can draw to enhance and enrich healthcare as a communal, collaborative, cooperative endeavour

    Strategies to Retain Employees in the Mental Health Workplace

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    Employee turnover continues to be an issue in the mental health community as mental health business leaders lack strategies to retain employees. Retention strategies are essential to promote continuity, funding, and profitability for mental health agencies and quality service care for patients. Grounded in Bassā€™s transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies mental health business leaders use to retain employees. Participants comprised three mental health center managers from a state agency in northern Louisiana who contributed to employee retention. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of organization performance evaluations, hire/rehire audit reports, and turnover analysis reports. Using Braun and Clarkā€™s six-step thematic analysis, three key themes emerged: communication, support, and teamwork. A key recommendation is for mental health business leaders to listen to employees with a sense of respect and value, demonstrate concern, and show awareness. Implications for positive social change include the potential for mental health business leaders to increase job satisfaction, job performance, and retention
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