151,261 research outputs found
Authentication and authorisation in entrusted unions
This paper reports on the status of a project whose aim is to implement and demonstrate in a real-life environment an integrated eAuthentication and eAuthorisation framework to enable trusted collaborations and delivery of services across different organisational/governmental jurisdictions. This aim will be achieved by designing a framework with assurance of claims, trust indicators, policy enforcement mechanisms and processing under encryption to address the security and confidentiality requirements of large distributed infrastructures. The framework supports collaborative secure distributed storage, secure data processing and management in both the cloud and offline scenarios and is intended to be deployed and tested in two pilot studies in two different domains, viz, Bio-security incident management and Ambient Assisted Living (eHealth). Interim results in terms of security requirements, privacy preserving authentication, and authorisation are reported
360 Quantified Self
Wearable devices with a wide range of sensors have contributed to the rise of
the Quantified Self movement, where individuals log everything ranging from the
number of steps they have taken, to their heart rate, to their sleeping
patterns. Sensors do not, however, typically sense the social and ambient
environment of the users, such as general life style attributes or information
about their social network. This means that the users themselves, and the
medical practitioners, privy to the wearable sensor data, only have a narrow
view of the individual, limited mainly to certain aspects of their physical
condition.
In this paper we describe a number of use cases for how social media can be
used to complement the check-up data and those from sensors to gain a more
holistic view on individuals' health, a perspective we call the 360 Quantified
Self. Health-related information can be obtained from sources as diverse as
food photo sharing, location check-ins, or profile pictures. Additionally,
information from a person's ego network can shed light on the social dimension
of wellbeing which is widely acknowledged to be of utmost importance, even
though they are currently rarely used for medical diagnosis. We articulate a
long-term vision describing the desirable list of technical advances and
variety of data to achieve an integrated system encompassing Electronic Health
Records (EHR), data from wearable devices, alongside information derived from
social media data.Comment: QCRI Technical Repor
Urban heritage conservation and rapid urbanization : insights from Surat, India
Currently, heritage is challenged in the Indian city of Surat due to diverse pressures, including rapid urbanization, increasing housing demand, and socio‐cultural and climate changes. Where rapid demographic growth of urban areas is happening, heritage is disappearing at an alarming rate. Despite some efforts from the local government, urban cultural heritage is being neglected and historic buildings keep being replaced by ordinary concrete buildings at a worryingly rapid pace. Discussions of challenges and issues of Surat’s urban area is supported by a qualitative dataset, including in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and focus groups with local policy makers, planners, and heritage experts, triangulated by observation and a photo‐survey of two historic areas. Findings from this study reveal a myriad of challenges such as: inadequacy of urban conservation management policies and processes focused on heritage, absence of skills, training, and resources amongst decision makers and persistent conflict and competition between heritage conservation needs and developers’ interests. Furthermore, the values and significance of Surat’s tangible and intangible heritage is not fully recognized by its citizens and heritage stakeholders. A crucial opportunity exists for Surat to maximize the potential of heritage and reinforce urban identity for its present and future generations. Surat’s context is representative of general trends and conservation challenges and therefore recommendations developed in this study hold the potential to offer interesting insights to the wider planners and conservationists’ international community. This paper recommends thoughtful integration of sustainable heritage urban conservation into local urban development frameworks and the establishment of approaches that recognize the plurality of heritage values
Homo Datumicus : correcting the market for identity data
Effective digital identity systems offer great economic and civic potential. However, unlocking this potential requires dealing with social, behavioural, and structural challenges to efficient market formation. We propose that a marketplace for identity data can be more efficiently formed with an infrastructure that provides a more adequate representation of individuals online. This paper therefore introduces the ontological concept of Homo Datumicus: individuals as data subjects transformed by HAT Microservers, with the axiomatic computational capabilities to transact with their own data at scale. Adoption of this paradigm would lower the social risks of identity orientation, enable privacy preserving transactions by default and mitigate the risks of power imbalances in digital identity systems and markets
Quality of Information in Mobile Crowdsensing: Survey and Research Challenges
Smartphones have become the most pervasive devices in people's lives, and are
clearly transforming the way we live and perceive technology. Today's
smartphones benefit from almost ubiquitous Internet connectivity and come
equipped with a plethora of inexpensive yet powerful embedded sensors, such as
accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone, and camera. This unique combination has
enabled revolutionary applications based on the mobile crowdsensing paradigm,
such as real-time road traffic monitoring, air and noise pollution, crime
control, and wildlife monitoring, just to name a few. Differently from prior
sensing paradigms, humans are now the primary actors of the sensing process,
since they become fundamental in retrieving reliable and up-to-date information
about the event being monitored. As humans may behave unreliably or
maliciously, assessing and guaranteeing Quality of Information (QoI) becomes
more important than ever. In this paper, we provide a new framework for
defining and enforcing the QoI in mobile crowdsensing, and analyze in depth the
current state-of-the-art on the topic. We also outline novel research
challenges, along with possible directions of future work.Comment: To appear in ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN
Insight from the 5th World Water Forum on Securing Water for Food and Ecosystems in Africa : Report on BOCI Project BO-10-004-003: Water Conventions
Water scarcity is considered to be one of the largest threats for many parts of Africa. Under water scarce conditions reducing the consumption of water and preventing pollution of accessible water resources is essential. Combating water scarcity in both dimensions of quality and quantity is of special relevance for the LNV priority regions (including those in Water Mondiaal). Future LNV policies to address food security in Africa will affect the use, spread and fate of agrochemicals as well. Very little information is available on how this might effect the ecosystem approach (including biodiversity, increased resilience, and multiple-use potential) in land use plannin
Visions and Challenges in Managing and Preserving Data to Measure Quality of Life
Health-related data analysis plays an important role in self-knowledge,
disease prevention, diagnosis, and quality of life assessment. With the advent
of data-driven solutions, a myriad of apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices
(wearables, home-medical sensors, etc) facilitates data collection and provide
cloud storage with a central administration. More recently, blockchain and
other distributed ledgers became available as alternative storage options based
on decentralised organisation systems. We bring attention to the human data
bleeding problem and argue that neither centralised nor decentralised system
organisations are a magic bullet for data-driven innovation if individual,
community and societal values are ignored. The motivation for this position
paper is to elaborate on strategies to protect privacy as well as to encourage
data sharing and support open data without requiring a complex access protocol
for researchers. Our main contribution is to outline the design of a
self-regulated Open Health Archive (OHA) system with focus on quality of life
(QoL) data.Comment: DSS 2018: Data-Driven Self-Regulating System
Digital Preservation, Archival Science and Methodological Foundations for Digital Libraries
Digital libraries, whether commercial, public or personal, lie at the heart of the information society. Yet, research into their long‐term viability and the meaningful accessibility of their contents remains in its infancy. In general, as we have pointed out elsewhere, ‘after more
than twenty years of research in digital curation and preservation the actual theories, methods and technologies that can either foster or ensure digital longevity remain
startlingly limited.’ Research led by DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) and the Digital
Preservation Cluster of DELOS has allowed us to refine the key research challenges – theoretical, methodological and technological – that need attention by researchers in digital libraries during the coming five to ten years, if we are to ensure that the materials held in our emerging digital libraries are to remain sustainable, authentic, accessible and understandable over time. Building on this work and taking the theoretical framework of archival science as bedrock, this paper investigates digital preservation and its foundational role if digital libraries are to have long‐term viability at the centre of the
global information society.
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