A threshold secure data sharing scheme for federated clouds

Cloud computing allows users to view computing in a new direction, as it uses the existing technologies to provide better IT services at low-cost. To offer high QOS to customers according SLA, cloud services broker or cloud service provider uses individual cloud providers that work collaboratively to form a federation of clouds. It is required in applications like Real-time online interactive applications, weather research and forecasting etc., in which the data and applications are complex and distributed. In these applications secret data should be shared, so secure data sharing mechanism is required in Federated clouds to reduce the risk of data intrusion, the loss of service availability and to ensure data integrity. So In this paper we have proposed zero knowledge data sharing scheme where Trusted Cloud Authority (TCA) will control federated clouds for data sharing where the secret to be exchanged for computation is encrypted and retrieved by individual cloud at the end. Our scheme is based on the difficulty of solving the Discrete Logarithm problem (DLOG) in a finite abelian group of large prime order which is NP-Hard. So our proposed scheme provides data integrity in transit, data availability when one of host providers are not available during the computation.Comment: 8 pages, 3 Figures, International Journal of Research in Computer Science 2012. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1003.3920 by other author

Designing Web-enabled services to provide damage estimation maps caused by natural hazards

The availability of building stock inventory data and demographic information is an important requirement for risk assessment studies when attempting to predict and estimate losses due to natural hazards such as earthquakes, storms, floods or tsunamis. The better this information is provided, the more accurate are predictions on damage to structures and lifelines and the better can expected impacts on the population be estimated. When a disaster strikes, a map is often one of the first requirements for answering questions related to location, casualties and damage zones caused by the event. Maps of appropriate scale that represent relative and absolute damage distributions may be of great importance for rescuing lives and properties, and for providing relief. However, this type of maps is often difficult to obtain during the first hours or even days after the occurrence of a natural disaster. The Open Geospatial Consortium Web Services (OWS) Specifications enable access to datasets and services using shared, distributed and interoperable environments through web-enabled services. In this paper we propose the use of OWS in view of these advantages as a possible solution for issues related to suitable dataset acquisition for risk assessment studies. The design of web-enabled services was carried out using the municipality of Managua (Nicaragua) and the development of damage and loss estimation maps caused by earthquakes as a first case study. Four organizations located in different places are involved in this proposal and connected through web services, each one with a specific role

Incorporación de la gestión del riesgo de desastres a las finanzas: aplicación del método de opciones reales para un proyecto sensible al riesgo de desastres

This paper discusses the application of real options analysis for a project that is in the process of construction and was affected by a natural disaster. The use of the analytical method has become a way of thinking in making decisions that should be taught to business school students. The case in this paper is based on an MBA thesis at the University of Gadjah Mada that was intended as a showcase for application of real options to address real business problems. It shows one of the strategies in mainstreaming disaster risk management in the business school that also answers the needs of businesses in the disaster-prone country.Este artículo discute la aplicación del análisis de opciones reales a un proyecto en proceso de construcción que se vio afectado por un desastre natural. El uso del método analítico se ha convertido en una manera de pensar cómo la toma de decisiones yiiiu8udebe ser enseñada a los estudiantes de escuelas de negocios. El caso de este artículo está basado en una tesis de la Maestría en Administración (MBA) de University of Gadjah Mada, que fue concebida como una plataforma para la aplicación de opciones reales para abordar los problemas de las empresas reales. Este caso muestra una de las estrategias de incorporación de la gestión de riesgo de desastres en las escuelas de negocios que, de igual manera, responde a las necesidades de las empresas en países propensos a desastres

Large-scale Land Cover Classification in GaoFen-2 Satellite Imagery

Many significant applications need land cover information of remote sensing images that are acquired from different areas and times, such as change detection and disaster monitoring. However, it is difficult to find a generic land cover classification scheme for different remote sensing images due to the spectral shift caused by diverse acquisition condition. In this paper, we develop a novel land cover classification method that can deal with large-scale data captured from widely distributed areas and different times. Additionally, we establish a large-scale land cover classification dataset consisting of 150 Gaofen-2 imageries as data support for model training and performance evaluation. Our experiments achieve outstanding classification accuracy compared with traditional methods.Comment: IGARSS'18 conference pape

Disasters and Loss of Life: NewEvidence on the Effect of Disaster Risk Management Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean

This study provides new empirical evidence on the effect of improving the conditions in disaster risk management (DRM) governance in terms of human losses resulting from disaster events. To measure governance in disaster risk management, we use the Index of Governance and Public Policy in Disaster Risk Management (IGOPP), developed by the Inter-American Development Bank, which characterizes the development of regulatory, institutional and budgetary processes for disaster risk management at the national level. This analysis uses regression models of count data for 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean for the 1980- 2017 period. We show that an improvement in disaster risk management governance leads to a significant reduction in the probability of human losses caused by disasters triggered by natural hazards. Specifically, an additional point in the IGOPP is associated with a 3% reduction of the fatalities caused by disasters. In addition, we find that a categorical improvement from low to good disaster risk management governance conditions yields savings, in term s of avoided human fatalities, in the order of US$ 381- 670 million per year and reduces the probability of fatality occurrence in 11 percentage points. These results suggest that the creation of conditions to improve disaster risk management governance is a crucial element not only to reverse the negative impact of the underlying causes of social vulnerability, such as deficiencies in the economic system and weak institutional capacity, but also a cost-effective strategy to reduce risk

Environmental Disasters and Individuals’ Emergency Preparedness:

Environmental disasters are becoming more frequent. These disasters not only include the most common natural disasters, but also include man-made disasters, such as public health, accident disasters, etc., which have caused greater damage to human society and cities. Because of the limitations of a single government-led model in emergency response, the emergency preparedness of communities, families and individuals are more important. In particular, the emergency preparedness psychology and behavior of individuals directly determine whether or not they can effectively protect themselves and their families in the first time of disaster. This Special Issue focuses on environmental disasters and individuals’ emergency preparedness in the perspective of psychology and behavior

Defining And Measuring Green FDI: An Exploratory Review Of Existing Work And Evidence

This paper was developed at the request of the OECD Working Party of the Investment Committee to document efforts to date to define and measure green FDI and to investigate the practicability of various possible definitions, as well as to identify investment policy restrictions to green FDI. It does so by reviewing the literature and existing work on the contributions of FDI to the environment; by providing a two-part definition of green FDI; and by discussing various assumptions necessary to estimate the magnitude of \u27green\u27 FDI

Significance and Determination of Fees for Municipal Finance

The idea of fiscal decentralisation has become increasingly fashionable world-wide. But every country has unique features of the intergovernmental fiscal system. In general municipal expenditures are rapidly growing in European countries. On the other hand local tax increases are not easily enforceable at present, whereas the local fiscal autonomy is unlikely to be guaranteed as long as municipalities are strongly dependent on down-flow grants. In such a fiscal-stress situation an improvement of local fiscal capacity can be achieved from the increase of fees. Four European countries were chosen to survey the recent development of municipal finance: Britain, Germany, Poland and Switzerland. This paper firstly identifies and highlights the similarities and differences in municipal finance in an international context. Secondly it theoretically examines the possibility of enhancing fiscal autonomy of local governments through determining optimal fee level which leads to an increase of revenues from this revenue item.fiscal decentralisation, local expenditures and taxes, fees, shared taxes, intergovernmental transfers, municipal borrowings, Poland, Britain, Switzerland, Germany

Seismic Risk Management Of An Elementary School Building Based On Minimum Expected Life-Cycle Cost

In earthquake disaster prevention, one serious problem confronting the world's earthquake - prone countries is seismic performance of buildings. A building is expected to remain safe and provide its intended function throughout its life span, with only small performance interruptions or damage due to earthquakes.It is necessary to identify buildings that are in risk and carry out their reconstruction or seismic retrofit in order to provide more strength and ductility. However the seismic retrofits come to a premium. Therefore, seismic retrofit of buildings entails an important risk-management decision problem as an optimal balance between the cost for the reinforcement and the future risks that must be achieved.This paper presents a decision methodology in seismic risk management considering only one fundamental risk, the cost imposed on the decision maker. The risk is expressed as the expected life-cycle cost, which is the expected amount of payments during the life of the building. These include the initial costs of the design and its construction, the additional cost for the reinforcement and the expected cost of damages generated due to earthquakes during the life span of the building.As an example, the proposed methodology is applied to an actual school building newly designed in Lushnja. The seismic evaluation of building is realized through the Japanese seismic screening method for seismic safety evaluation of existing reinforced concrete buildings. The actual cost of existing building and the additional cost for strengthening by using shear walls are estimated. In this case study, it is examined the cost effectiveness of shear walls used for strengthening of the school building in reducing the life-cycle cos