Dynamic trust negotiation for decentralised e-health collaborations

In the Internet-age, the geographical boundaries that have previously impinged upon inter-organisational collaborations have become decreasingly important. Of more importance for such collaborations is the notion and subsequent nature of security and trust - this is especially so in open collaborative environments like the Grid where resources can be both made available, subsequently accessed and used by remote users from a multitude of institutions with a variety of different privileges spanning across the collaboration. In this context, the ability to dynamically negotiate and subsequently enforce security policies driven by various levels of inter-organisational trust is essential. Numerous access control solutions exist today to address aspects of inter-organisational security. These include the use of centralised access control lists where all collaborating partners negotiate and agree on privileges required to access shared resources. Other solutions involve delegating aspects of access right management to trusted remote individuals in assigning privileges to their (remote) users. These solutions typically entail negotiations and delegations which are constrained by organisations, people and the static rules they impose. Such constraints often result in a lack of flexibility in what has been agreed; difficulties in reaching agreement, or once established, in subsequently maintaining these agreements. Furthermore, these solutions often reduce the autonomous capacity of collaborating organisations because of the need to satisfy collaborating partners demands. This can result in increased security risks or reducing the granularity of security policies. Underpinning this is the issue of trust. Specifically trust realisation between organisations, between individuals, and/or between entities or systems that are present in multi-domain authorities. Trust negotiation is one approach that allows and supports trust realisation. The thesis introduces a novel model called dynamic trust negotiation (DTN) that supports n-tier negotiation hops for trust realisation in multi-domain collaborative environments with specific focus on e-Health environments. DTN describes how trust pathways can be discovered and subsequently how remote security credentials can be mapped to local security credentials through trust contracts, thereby bridging the gap that makes decentralised security policies difficult to define and enforce. Furthermore, DTN shows how n-tier negotiation hops can limit the disclosure of access control policies and how semantic issues that exist with security attributes in decentralised environments can be reduced. The thesis presents the results from the application of DTN to various clinical trials and the implementation of DTN to Virtual Organisation for Trials of Epidemiological Studies (VOTES). The thesis concludes that DTN can address the issue of realising and establishing trust between systems or agents within the e-Health domain, such as the clinical trials domain

Rape in Islamic Law: problems of classification and adjudication

This research investigates rape as a crime according to Islamic criminal law. There have been many controversial issues pertaining to the notion of rape, its penal classification, punishment, adjudication and remedies for the victim. Rape in classical Islamic law has been seen as a crime correlated with zina and as such to be treated in the same way as zina in terms of collecting evidence for prosecution, as well as the punishment for it. However, some modern scholars have suggested that rape is actually closer to hiraba on the basis that there are concepts of hiraba, such as physical assault, in rape. These different classifications of rape result it different procedures for prosecution, proof and punishment. This research examines the appropriate punishment for the rape as well as modern developments regarding the prosecution of rape, legal procedures, the rights of the accused and the rights of the victim, based on the opinions and arguments of classical and modern Muslim jurisprudents from various schools of la

Design of a Recommender System for Participatory Media Built on a Tetherless Communication Infrastructure

We address the challenge of providing low-cost, universal access of useful information to people in different parts of the globe. We achieve this by following two strategies. First, we focus on the delivery of information through computerized devices and prototype new methods for making that delivery possible in a secure, low-cost, and universal manner. Second, we focus on the use of participatory media, such as blogs, in the context of news related content, and develop methods to recommend useful information that will be of interest to users. To achieve the first goal, we have designed a low-cost wireless system for Internet access in rural areas, and a smartphone-based system for the opportunistic use of WiFi connectivity to reduce the cost of data transfer on multi-NIC mobile devices. Included is a methodology for secure communication using identity based cryptography. For the second goal of identifying useful information, we make use of sociological theories regarding social networks in mass-media to develop a model of how participatory media can offer users effective news-related information. We then use this model to design a recommender system for participatory media content that pushes useful information to people in a personalized fashion. Our algorithms provide an order of magnitude better performance in terms of recommendation accuracy than other state-of-the-art recommender systems. Our work provides some fundamental insights into the design of low-cost communication systems and the provision of useful messages to users in participatory media through a multi-disciplinary approach. The result is a framework that efficiently and effectively delivers information to people in remote corners of the world

Codes as Constitution: The Development of the Biblical Law-Codes from Monarchy to Theocracy

As a result of influence from assyriology and the sociology of law, the Hebrew legal texts have commonly been categorised in recent study as ancient law-codes analogous to the cuneiform codes recovered from the ancient Near East. This has not led, however, to a more constructive and decisive stage in the study of biblical law, and conceptual and methodological problems have been imported from each field. The current interpretative models of the texts, in terms either of legislative, or of non-legislative functions, fail to provide a coherent explanation for their formation. This thesis is to contrive a fair and neutral approach that can embrace different types of law on the one hand, and make allowance for legal development on the other. Abandoning more casual modern presuppositions about the character of law and of legal systems, the analysis takes as its starting-point the basic concept of law universally accepted by scholars of jurisprudence, and shifts the debate from the old question of whether these ancient codes were “law” or “not law” to questions about why and how these ancient law-codes could have been formulated and functioned in their contemporary societies. The analysis also looks beyond the cuneiform law-codes and concepts of kingship in the ancient Near East, to other early laws developed in different cultures, such as Athens and imperial China. Against such a historical and conceptual background, the conceptual leap reflected in the Torah from common monarchical law to the constitution of theocracy is examined within the changing socio-historical contexts of Israel itself, from the period of the monarchy through to the Exile. While the initial development of the Hebrew law is thus reconstructed in accord with the general position of monarchical law in ancient empires, the legal breakthrough made in the Torah will be associated with exilic Israel, which transformed the concept of law and the socio-political system for the purpose of reconstituting the nation

Take Pride in America Phase III - Further Development of a Local Litter and Desert Dumping Cleanup Program: Project Compendium

The Take Pride in America in Southern Nevada project began as a collaboration of four federal agencies committed to working together to combat the litter and desert dumping problem on the nearly seven million acres of public lands in Southern Nevada. In 2005, with funding from the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA), SNAP created an interagency anti-litter and desert dumping team and developed a partnership with the Public Lands Institute (PLI) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. SNAP and PLI managed the Take Pride in America in Southern Nevada project and launched the Don’t Trash Nevada messaging campaign. In the beginning, dedicated federal employees and legions of Don’t Trash Nevada volunteers took on the tons of construction dumping on public lands while Clark County Nevada experienced the largest rate of growth in the nation. The continuous efforts of the stalwart volunteers earned them recognition as the Take Pride in America Outstanding State Volunteer Program in 2008. As building continued, landscape dumping quickly emerged as a battlefront for Don’t Trash Nevada. Then with the devastating economic downturn, another front in the war appeared: dumping of household goods from foreclosed homes. In the background, working as a continual threat, was the constant stream of litter from recreational users like picnickers, target shooters, boaters, and fishermen. Technology played a big role in the third phase of the project. A Geographic Information System (GIS) database was developed and team members were trained to use a mobile version to enhance removal, mitigation and abatement planning. A system for using the GIS database to monitor litter conditions was also developed by leveraging the time and interest of concerned citizens. The technology of social media boosted the public awareness of the problem of litter and desert dumping and empowered youth to serve as the voice of the public lands. This project compendium contains the accomplishments and products resulting from a collaborative effort to reduce litter and desert dumping in Southern Nevada. The project was funded by the SNPLMA Conservation Initiatives through the Great Basin Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit (CESU). The achievements of this project would not have been possible without the commitment and participation of many people within the four federal land management agencies, the CESU program, UNLV, and the Clark County community. The successes captured in this compendium are impressive. Yet the biggest accomplishment continues as the impact of developing a community of citizens actively involved in caring for the land will be felt far into the future

Divorce and a Deafening Silence: Exegesis of Exodus 21:10-11 in the Twentieth Century

With the publication of his 2002 Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, David Instone-Brewer seemed to have ignited a firestorm—within Christian circles and without—over a millennia-old issue: the biblical grounds for divorce. Given the Christian church’s pressing need to provide hope and healing for victims of divorce, Christian academia must provide an assessment of Instone-Brewer’s controversial work. One aspect of this assessment involves Instone-Brewer’s treatment of Exodus 21:10-11, the text from which he derives two grounds for divorce: emotional and material neglect. Taking as its research pool exegetical commentaries published since Keil and Delitzsch’s 1891 Commentary of the Old Testament, this study develops seven distinctive features for comparing commentaries on Exodus 21:10-11 in relation to Instone-Brewer’s work. The study serves three purposes: 1) to chart 20th century exegesis of the passage; 2) to locate Instone-Brewer within that landscape of commentary; and, 3) using that newfound data, to provide a few guidelines for assessing the quality of Instone-Brewer’s research. Therefore, this study provides the necessary research and framework for developing a scholarly critique of Instone-Brewer’s exegesis of Exodus 21:10-11

It\u27s just part of what we do : Adolescent interactions with multimodal texts across social spaces

This dissertation explores how adolescents are interacting with text across shifting social spaces, and how they learn to be literate across a range of social, academic, print, and digital contexts. The intent of the study is to help articulate the boundedness and fluidity of multiple discourses, and to better clarify how teens maneuver across these boundaries successfully. My research approach incorporates ethnographic methodology with a framework of critical sociocultural theory, drawing heavily upon Gee\u27s (2005) work in discourse analysis. New technologies have broken down bounded spaces and dichotomous views of what it means to be literate, creating interrelationships among literacies and modalities (Kress, 2003). They have complicated notions of adolescent literacy, shifting definitions away from static and print-centric views toward a contextualized framing of multiple literacies, using the tools and texts within situated contexts (Kress, 2000a, 2003; Luke 2000; Maybin, 2000). This study examines the embeddedness of these tools and texts in the literacy experiences of today\u27s Digital Natives (Prensky 2001a, 2001b). Because this study asks about lived experiences of participants, I chose an ethnographic approach (Agar, 2006a, 2006b; Schram, 2006; Silverman, 2007), relying on observations and interviews of student and teacher participants. My conceptual framework lies within critical sociocultural theory (Keller, 1995; Lewis, Enciso, and Moje, 2007; Moje and Lewis, 2007), with a consideration of the role of agency within dynamics of power. This work also deconstructs notions of literacy, discourse, context and text, and discusses the complications of these terms brought about by new Web 2.0 media. Major findings include the following: (1) Although teens are entrenched in a range of interactions with social digital text, they appreciate the value of academic literacies, and of teachers as conveyors of this knowledge. (2) While schools set rules that define appropriate behaviors with social digital networks, students and teachers frequently negotiate the boundaries through relationships founded on trust. (3) Teens are able to articulate and understand the boundedness of multiple discourse systems. This work explores pedagogical implications and delves into the complex issue of shifting power dynamics occurring in schools today

Data Gathering and Dissemination over Flying Ad-hoc Networks in Smart Environments

The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) has laid the foundations for new possibilities in our life. The ability to communicate with any electronic device has become a fascinating opportunity. Particularly interesting are UAVs (Unmanned Airborne Vehicles), autonomous or remotely controlled flying devices able to operate in many contexts thanks to their mobility, sensors, and communication capabilities. Recently, the use of UAVs has become an important asset in many critical and common scenarios; thereby, various research groups have started to consider UAVs’ potentiality applied on smart environments. UAVs can communicate with each other forming a Flying Ad-hoc Network (FANET), in order to provide complex services that requires the coordination of several UAVs; yet, this also generates challenging communication issues. This dissertation starts from this standpoint, firstly focusing on networking issues and potential solutions already present in the state-of-the-art. To this aim, the peculiar issues of routing in mobile, 3D shaped ad-hoc networks have been investigated through a set of simulations to compare different ad-hoc routing protocols and understand their limits. From this knowledge, our work takes into consideration the differences between classic MANETs and FANETs, highlighting the specific communication performance of UAVs and their specific mobility models. Based on these assumptions, we propose refinements and improvements of routing protocols, as well as their linkage with actual UAV-based applications to support smart services. Particular consideration is devoted to Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTNs), characterized by long packet delays and intermittent connectivity, a critical aspect when UAVs are involved. The goal is to leverage on context-aware strategies in order to design more efficient routing solutions. The outcome of this work includes the design and analysis of new routing protocols supporting efficient UAVs’ communication with heterogeneous smart objects in smart environments. Finally, we discuss about how the presence of UAV swarms may affect the perception of population, providing a critical analysis of how the consideration of these aspects could change a FANET communication infrastructure

RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques

Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a waste management system and illustrates the work process using plasterboard waste as an example, which creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10% in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony optimization and knowledge technology for auditing and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate, followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms of both system level structure and process structure. And finally, an example scenario will be given to illustrate the system’s utilization