Validation of design artefacts for blockchain-enabled precision healthcare as a service.

Healthcare systems around the globe are currently experiencing a rapid wave of digital disruption. Current research in applying emerging technologies such as Big Data (BD), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Digital Twin (DT), Wearable Sensor (WS), Blockchain (BC) and Smart Contracts (SC) in contact tracing, tracking, drug discovery, care support and delivery, vaccine distribution, management, and delivery. These disruptive innovations have made it feasible for the healthcare industry to provide personalised digital health solutions and services to the people and ensure sustainability in healthcare. Precision Healthcare (PHC) is a new inclusion in digital healthcare that can support personalised needs. It focuses on supporting and providing precise healthcare delivery. Despite such potential, recent studies show that PHC is ineffectual due to the lower patient adoption in the system. Anecdotal evidence shows that people are refraining from adopting PHC due to distrust. This thesis presents a BC-enabled PHC ecosystem that addresses ongoing issues and challenges regarding low opt-in. The designed ecosystem also incorporates emerging information technologies that are potential to address the need for user-centricity, data privacy and security, accountability, transparency, interoperability, and scalability for a sustainable PHC ecosystem. The research adopts Soft System Methodology (SSM) to construct and validate the design artefact and sub-artefacts of the proposed PHC ecosystem that addresses the low opt-in problem. Following a comprehensive view of the scholarly literature, which resulted in a draft set of design principles and rules, eighteen design refinement interviews were conducted to develop the artefact and sub-artefacts for design specifications. The artefact and sub-artefacts were validated through a design validation workshop, where the designed ecosystem was presented to a Delphi panel of twenty-two health industry actors. The key research finding was that there is a need for data-driven, secure, transparent, scalable, individualised healthcare services to achieve sustainability in healthcare. It includes explainable AI, data standards for biosensor devices, affordable BC solutions for storage, privacy and security policy, interoperability, and usercentricity, which prompts further research and industry application. The proposed ecosystem is potentially effective in growing trust, influencing patients in active engagement with real-world implementation, and contributing to sustainability in healthcare

AN ENHANCEMENT ON TARGETED PHISHING ATTACKS IN THE STATE OF QATAR

The latest report by Kaspersky on Spam and Phishing, listed Qatar as one of the top 10 countries by percentage of email phishing and targeted phishing attacks. Since the Qatari economy has grown exponentially and become increasingly global in nature, email phishing and targeted phishing attacks have the capacity to be devastating to the Qatari economy, yet there are no adequate measures put in place such as awareness training programmes to minimise these threats to the state of Qatar. Therefore, this research aims to explore targeted attacks in specific organisations in the state of Qatar by presenting a new technique to prevent targeted attacks. This novel enterprise-wide email phishing detection system has been used by organisations and individuals not only in the state of Qatar but also in organisations in the UK. This detection system is based on domain names by which attackers carefully register domain names which victims trust. The results show that this detection system has proven its ability to reduce email phishing attacks. Moreover, it aims to develop email phishing awareness training techniques specifically designed for the state of Qatar to complement the presented technique in order to increase email phishing awareness, focused on targeted attacks and the content, and reduce the impact of phishing email attacks. This research was carried out by developing an interactive email phishing awareness training website that has been tested by organisations in the state of Qatar. The results of this training programme proved to get effective results by training users on how to spot email phishing and targeted attacks

Designing Hybrid Interactions through an Understanding of the Affordances of Physical and Digital Technologies

Two recent technological advances have extended the diversity of domains and social contexts of Human-Computer Interaction: the embedding of computing capabilities into physical hand-held objects, and the emergence of large interactive surfaces, such as tabletops and wall boards. Both interactive surfaces and small computational devices usually allow for direct and space-multiplex input, i.e., for the spatial coincidence of physical action and digital output, in multiple points simultaneously. Such a powerful combination opens novel opportunities for the design of what are considered as hybrid interactions in this work. This thesis explores the affordances of physical interaction as resources for interface design of such hybrid interactions. The hybrid systems that are elaborated in this work are envisioned to support specific social and physical contexts, such as collaborative cooking in a domestic kitchen, or collaborative creativity in a design process. In particular, different aspects of physicality characteristic of those specific domains are explored, with the aim of promoting skill transfer across domains. irst, different approaches to the design of space-multiplex, function-specific interfaces are considered and investigated. Such design approaches build on related work on Graspable User Interfaces and extend the design space to direct touch interfaces such as touch-sensitive surfaces, in different sizes and orientations (i.e., tablets, interactive tabletops, and walls). These approaches are instantiated in the design of several experience prototypes: These are evaluated in different settings to assess the contextual implications of integrating aspects of physicality in the design of the interface. Such implications are observed both at the pragmatic level of interaction (i.e., patterns of users' behaviors on first contact with the interface), as well as on user' subjective response. The results indicate that the context of interaction affects the perception of the affordances of the system, and that some qualities of physicality such as the 3D space of manipulation and relative haptic feedback can affect the feeling of engagement and control. Building on these findings, two controlled studies are conducted to observe more systematically the implications of integrating some of the qualities of physical interaction into the design of hybrid ones. The results indicate that, despite the fact that several aspects of physical interaction are mimicked in the interface, the interaction with digital media is quite different and seems to reveal existing mental models and expectations resulting from previous experience with the WIMP paradigm on the desktop PC

Entrega de conteúdos multimédia em over-the-top: caso de estudo das gravações automáticas

Doutoramento em Engenharia EletrotécnicaOver-The-Top (OTT) multimedia delivery is a very appealing approach for providing ubiquitous, exible, and globally accessible services capable of low-cost and unrestrained device targeting. In spite of its appeal, the underlying delivery architecture must be carefully planned and optimized to maintain a high Qualityof- Experience (QoE) and rational resource usage, especially when migrating from services running on managed networks with established quality guarantees. To address the lack of holistic research works on OTT multimedia delivery systems, this Thesis focuses on an end-to-end optimization challenge, considering a migration use-case of a popular Catch-up TV service from managed IP Television (IPTV) networks to OTT. A global study is conducted on the importance of Catch-up TV and its impact in today's society, demonstrating the growing popularity of this time-shift service, its relevance in the multimedia landscape, and tness as an OTT migration use-case. Catch-up TV consumption logs are obtained from a Pay-TV operator's live production IPTV service containing over 1 million subscribers to characterize demand and extract insights from service utilization at a scale and scope not yet addressed in the literature. This characterization is used to build demand forecasting models relying on machine learning techniques to enable static and dynamic optimization of OTT multimedia delivery solutions, which are able to produce accurate bandwidth and storage requirements' forecasts, and may be used to achieve considerable power and cost savings whilst maintaining a high QoE. A novel caching algorithm, Most Popularly Used (MPU), is proposed, implemented, and shown to outperform established caching algorithms in both simulation and experimental scenarios. The need for accurate QoE measurements in OTT scenarios supporting HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) motivates the creation of a new QoE model capable of taking into account the impact of key HAS aspects. By addressing the complete content delivery pipeline in the envisioned content-aware OTT Content Delivery Network (CDN), this Thesis demonstrates that signi cant improvements are possible in next-generation multimedia delivery solutions.A entrega de conteúdos multimédia em Over-The-Top (OTT) e uma proposta atractiva para fornecer um serviço flexível e globalmente acessível, capaz de alcançar qualquer dispositivo, com uma promessa de baixos custos. Apesar das suas vantagens, e necessario um planeamento arquitectural detalhado e optimizado para manter níveis elevados de Qualidade de Experiência (QoE), em particular aquando da migração dos serviços suportados em redes geridas com garantias de qualidade pré-estabelecidas. Para colmatar a falta de trabalhos de investigação na área de sistemas de entrega de conteúdos multimédia em OTT, esta Tese foca-se na optimização destas soluções como um todo, partindo do caso de uso de migração de um serviço popular de Gravações Automáticas suportado em redes de Televisão sobre IP (IPTV) geridas, para um cenário de entrega em OTT. Um estudo global para aferir a importância das Gravações Automáticas revela a sua relevância no panorama de serviços multimédia e a sua adequação enquanto caso de uso de migração para cenários OTT. São obtidos registos de consumos de um serviço de produção de Gravações Automáticas, representando mais de 1 milhão de assinantes, para caracterizar e extrair informação de consumos numa escala e âmbito não contemplados ate a data na literatura. Esta caracterização e utilizada para construir modelos de previsão de carga, tirando partido de sistemas de machine learning, que permitem optimizações estáticas e dinâmicas dos sistemas de entrega de conteúdos em OTT através de previsões das necessidades de largura de banda e armazenamento, potenciando ganhos significativos em consumo energético e custos. Um novo mecanismo de caching, Most Popularly Used (MPU), demonstra um desempenho superior as soluções de referencia, quer em cenários de simulação quer experimentais. A necessidade de medição exacta da QoE em streaming adaptativo HTTP motiva a criaçao de um modelo capaz de endereçar aspectos específicos destas tecnologias adaptativas. Ao endereçar a cadeia completa de entrega através de uma arquitectura consciente dos seus conteúdos, esta Tese demonstra que são possíveis melhorias de desempenho muito significativas nas redes de entregas de conteúdos em OTT de próxima geração

Long Term Ocular Drug Delivery with Novel Pentablock Copolymers; Part I: Composite Nanoformulation of Macromolecules For Back of the Eye Diseases, Part II: Dexamethasone Nanoparticle to Develop an In Vitro Model for Glaucoma

Title from PDF of title page viewed August 28, 2018Dissertation advisor: Ashim K. MitraVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 208-225)Thesis (Ph.,D.)--School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2017Pentablock (PB) copolymers have been successfully synthesized for long term delivery in the treatment of posterior segment ocular diseases. PB copolymers are comprised of FDA approved biodegradable polymer such as polyethylene glycol (PEG), polycaprolactone (PCL), polylactic acid (PLA) and polyglycolic acid (PGA). PB copolymers of different composition, molecular weights and block arrangements were synthesized by ring opening bulk copolymerization method and analyzed by NMR, GPC FT-IR and XRD analyses. Further, these PB copolymers have been utilized to develop the macromolecule embedded thermosensitive gels or nanoparticles (NPs) or composite nanoformulation (NPs suspended in gel) for a sustained drug delivery. PBG (PLA-PCL-PEG-PCL-PLA; PBG-1 and PEG-PCL-PLA-PCL-PEG; PBG-2) gelling copolymers were evaluated for their utility as injectable in situ hydrogel forming depot for controlled ocular delivery of macromolecules (proteins, peptides and Fab fragments). A wide variety of macromolecules (Octreotide, IgG-Fab, IgG-Fab‘ and IgG) with molecular weights ranging from 1 - 150 kDa have been used for this purpose. The kinematic viscosity of the copolymer solution was studied at different polymer concentration with different block arrangment. It was observed that viscosity of hydrophobic polymer (PBG-1) was considerably higher relative to PBG-2 copolymer. Sol-gel transition curves for PBG-1 and PBG-2 copolymer was compared to understand the effect of hydrophobicity and effect of block arrangement on the sol-gel behavior of block copolymers. Sol-gel transition and rheology revealed that PBG block arrangements were easy to handle at room temperature and easy to administer through small gauge needle. Cell viability and cytotoxicity studies confirmed that PBG copolymers are superior biomaterials for ocular delivery. It was observed that the in vitro release pattern was depended on the molecular weight of the macromolecules and amphiphilic nature of the PBG copolymers. It is anticipated that much longer release can be obtained by altering block composition or change in hydrophobicity and/or hydrophilicity of the gelling polymer. The in vitro release pattern was in conjunction with the facts that amorphous and hydrophilic polymer degrades fast. CD spectroscopy results revealed no changes in the secondary structure of macromoelcules (studied for IgG as a model macromoelcule). The in vitro degradation study for PBG-2 copolymer was performed under four different conditions; (i) in pH 7.4 PBS at 37°C, (ii) in presence of enzymes acetylcholinesterase (14.7 mU/mL) and butyrylcholinesterase (5.9 mU/mL), (iii) in pH 9.0 borate buffer at 37°C and (iv) in pH 7.4 PBS at 40°C. The samples were analyzed by XRD and GPC to determine the weight loss of the PBG-2 copolymer. It was observed that accelerated conditions such as pH 9.0 (37°C) and high temperature (40°C) exhibited weight loss of ~45% and ~40%, respectively which were significantly higher than weight loss observed under normal condition (pH - 7.4, 37°C) i.e., ~35%. No significant effect of enzymes was observed on polymer degradation. Besides, in vivo assessment of PBG-2 copolymer provided a safe environment and was well tolerated in the rabbit eyes analyzed up to 33 weeks. Further, PB-NPs were formulated with different molecular weights of PB copolymer (PCL-PLA-PEG-PLA-PCL) to study the release pattern of macromolecules (lysozyme, IgG-Fab, ranibizumab and IgG). The macromolecules encapsulated in PB NPs were prepared by W1/O/W2 double emulsion solvent evaporation method. The macromolecules were optimized to achieve a high drug loading (~17%) and entrapment efficiency (~66%) in the NPs. PB-NPs alone exhibited significant burst release in the first few days however, the dual approach i.e., composite nanoformulations (macromolecules encapsulated PB-NPs dispersed in thermosensitive gel) eliminated the burst release effect and exhibited nearly zero-order protein release for significantly longer durations (~3-6 months). In order to compare the duration of in vitro release, PB copolymers with different molecular weight have been studied. The enzymatic activity of lysozyme with its respective enzymatic assays was used to investigate the activity of released macromolecule. Anti-VEGF activity of ranibizumab released from composite nanoformulation was analyzed by indirect ELISA. It was observed that macromolecules maintained their structural integrity and bioactivity during the preparation of the nanoformulation and also during the drug release process. The mean particle size distribution of NPs in PBS was found in the range of ~150 nm and was consistent throughout the study in different media analyzed up to 10 days. The results confirmed the higher stability of NPs in different cell culture media. In vitro cell viability, cytotoxicity and biocompatibility studies performed on various ocular cells, confirmed the safety of PB copolymers for ocular applications. PART II: DEXAMETHASONE NANOPARTICLE TO DEVELOP AN IN VITRO MODEL FOR GLAUCOMA The aim of the present study was to examine the elevation of myocillin (MYOC); one of the extra cellular matrix related proteins whose expression is altered in presence of long-term treatment of Glucocorticoids. In this study, dexamethasone (DEX) was selected as model drug. The different strains of primary cultures of human trabecular meshwork (HTM) cell line (HTM120, 136, 126, 134 and 141) were used to develop the in vitro cell culture model of glaucoma. To obtain a long-term delivery of DEX, pentablock (PB) copolymer was synthesize using the ring opening bulk copolymerization method and characterized by NMR, GPC and XRD analyses. PB copolymer was used to formulate the DEX encapsulated nanoparticles (NPs) with entrapment efficiency of ~63% and drug loading of ~11% w/w. The mean particle size distribution of NPs was analyzed by NTA in PBS was found in the range of ~109 nm. The biomaterial was further studied for in vitro cytotoxicity and cell viability. Results showed that neither cell viability nor cytotoxicity was affected up to 12 weeks of treatment. DEX-PB-NPs or control NPs treatments were given to the HTM cells and cell culture supernatant was collected/replaced with fresh 1% DMEM once/week for 12 weeks. DEX or vehicle was used as controls to compare MYOC secretion levels by Western blot (WB). Four HTM cell strains tested showed similar MYOC secretion patterns, having robust responses for the entire monitoring period. In contrast, one cell strain responded only for a few weeks. Quantitation of WB data from five HTM cell strains showed that MYOC increased by 5.2 ± 1.3, 7.4 ± 4.3, and 2.8 ± 1.1 fold at 4, 8, and 12 weeks in the presence of DEX-PB-NPs compared to 9.2 ± 3.8, 2.2 ± 0.5, and 1.5 ± 0.3 fold at 4, 8, and 12 weeks in control DEX treatment group. Based on the decline in MYOC levels after withdrawal of DEX from control wells, results indicate that DEX-PB-NPs released biologically active DEX for at least 10 weeks. By comparison, MYOC levels in vehicle treated control wells remained unchanged. Moreover, PB copolymers were biocompatible and didn‘t modifying the cellular functions of HTM cells. Although the PB copolymers did not show any sign of cytotoxicity to HTM cells in this long-term study, they did modify HTM cell morphology. HTM cell elongation was present in all cell strains after both Con-NPs and DEX-PB-NPs treatment. Morphological modification of HTM cells by the polymers may accompany functional changes those were not measured in the present study, but needs further investigations. Meanwhile, this study provides the evidence that our in vitro system developed in this study is a valuable tool for analyzing the safety of the polymers and biological effects of steroids released from the polymers. In addition, histological observations in the C57BL/6 mice showed normal phenomenon in ocular tissue morphology.Literature review -- Part I. Composite nanoformulation of macromolecules for back of the eye diseases ; Introduction -- Biodegradable and biocompatible thermosensitive gelling pentablock copolymers for long term ocular delivery of macromolecules -- Composite anoformulation for long term ocular delivery of macromolecules: effect of molecular weight on drug release -- Composite nanoformulation for long term ocular delivery of IgG-FAB and ranibizumab -- Summary and recommendations -- Part II. Dexamethasone nanoformulation to develop an in vitro model glaucoma -- Introduction -- Pentablock copolymer based dexamethasone nonoformulations elevate NYOC: in vitro liberation, activity and safety in human trabecular meshwork cells and in vivo histology -- Summary and future prospective -- Appendi

Technology and Management Applied in Construction Engineering Projects

This book focuses on fundamental and applied research on construction project management. It presents research papers and practice-oriented papers. The execution of construction projects is specific and particularly difficult because each implementation is a unique, complex, and dynamic process that consists of several or more subprocesses that are related to each other, in which various aspects of the investment process participate. Therefore, there is still a vital need to study, research, and conclude the engineering technology and management applied in construction projects. This book present unanimous research approach is a result of many years of studies, conducted by 35 well experienced authors. The common subject of research concerns the development of methods and tools for modeling multi-criteria processes in construction engineering

INNOVATION IN CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A VISION OF THE FUTURE

Organized by engineering organizations, this international event will be the place to discuss the current state and best practices and foresee the future of continuing professional development (CPD) and of Continuing Engineering Education (CEE). Major stakeholders are invited and interaction is sought to write the history of the future of CPD and of CEE. The format of the conference will provide plenty of occasions to hear everyoneŽs opinion and to exchange ideas and plans. Take part in shaping the future of CPD and of CEE on a global stage with one of the worlds only international organizations devoted to CPD and CEE global stage. Take advantage and visit Porto a city that has been chosen as #1 best destination in Europe in 2014.Organized by engineering organizations, this international event will be the place to discuss the current state and best practices and foresee the future of continuing professional development (CPD) and of Continuing Engineering Education (CEE). Major stakeholders are invited and interaction is sought to write the history of the future of CPD and of CEE. The format of the conference will provide plenty of occasions to hear everyoneŽs opinion and to exchange ideas and plans. Take part in shaping the future of CPD and of CEE on a global stage with one of the worlds only international organizations devoted to CPD and CEE global stage. Take advantage and visit Porto a city that has been chosen as #1 best destination in Europe in 2014