1,662 research outputs found
Joining up health and bioinformatics: e-science meets e-health
CLEF (Co-operative Clinical e-Science Framework) is an MRC sponsored project in the e-Science programme that aims to establish methodologies and a technical infrastructure forthe next generation of integrated clinical and bioscience research. It is developing methodsfor managing and using pseudonymised repositories of the long-term patient histories whichcan be linked to genetic, genomic information or used to support patient care. CLEF concentrateson removing key barriers to managing such repositories ? ethical issues, informationcapture, integration of disparate sources into coherent ?chronicles? of events, userorientedmechanisms for querying and displaying the information, and compiling the requiredknowledge resources. This paper describes the overall information flow and technicalapproach designed to meet these aims within a Grid framework
Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier
As universities recognize the inherent value in the data they collect and
hold, they encounter unforeseen challenges in stewarding those data in ways
that balance accountability, transparency, and protection of privacy, academic
freedom, and intellectual property. Two parallel developments in academic data
collection are converging: (1) open access requirements, whereby researchers
must provide access to their data as a condition of obtaining grant funding or
publishing results in journals; and (2) the vast accumulation of 'grey data'
about individuals in their daily activities of research, teaching, learning,
services, and administration. The boundaries between research and grey data are
blurring, making it more difficult to assess the risks and responsibilities
associated with any data collection. Many sets of data, both research and grey,
fall outside privacy regulations such as HIPAA, FERPA, and PII. Universities
are exploiting these data for research, learning analytics, faculty evaluation,
strategic decisions, and other sensitive matters. Commercial entities are
besieging universities with requests for access to data or for partnerships to
mine them. The privacy frontier facing research universities spans open access
practices, uses and misuses of data, public records requests, cyber risk, and
curating data for privacy protection. This paper explores the competing values
inherent in data stewardship and makes recommendations for practice, drawing on
the pioneering work of the University of California in privacy and information
security, data governance, and cyber risk.Comment: Final published version, Sept 30, 201
CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap
After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in
multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year.
In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio-
economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown
of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on
requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the
community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our
Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as
National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core
technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research
challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal
challenges
Perceptual and technical barriers in sharing and formatting metadata accompanying omics studies
Metadata, often termed "data about data," is crucial for organizing,
understanding, and managing vast omics datasets. It aids in efficient data
discovery, integration, and interpretation, enabling users to access,
comprehend, and utilize data effectively. Its significance spans the domains of
scientific research, facilitating data reproducibility, reusability, and
secondary analysis. However, numerous perceptual and technical barriers hinder
the sharing of metadata among researchers. These barriers compromise the
reliability of research results and hinder integrative meta-analyses of omics
studies . This study highlights the key barriers to metadata sharing, including
the lack of uniform standards, privacy and legal concerns, limitations in study
design, limited incentives, inadequate infrastructure, and the dearth of
well-trained personnel for metadata management and reuse. Proposed solutions
include emphasizing the promotion of standardization, educational efforts, the
role of journals and funding agencies, incentives and rewards, and the
improvement of infrastructure. More accurate, reliable, and impactful research
outcomes are achievable if the scientific community addresses these barriers,
facilitating more accurate, reliable, and impactful research outcomes
ForensiBlock: A Provenance-Driven Blockchain Framework for Data Forensics and Auditability
Maintaining accurate provenance records is paramount in digital forensics, as
they underpin evidence credibility and integrity, addressing essential aspects
like accountability and reproducibility. Blockchains have several properties
that can address these requirements. Previous systems utilized public
blockchains, i.e., treated blockchain as a black box, and benefiting from the
immutability property. However, the blockchain was accessible to everyone,
giving rise to security concerns and moreover, efficient extraction of
provenance faces challenges due to the enormous scale and complexity of digital
data. This necessitates a tailored blockchain design for digital forensics. Our
solution, Forensiblock has a novel design that automates investigation steps,
ensures secure data access, traces data origins, preserves records, and
expedites provenance extraction. Forensiblock incorporates Role-Based Access
Control with Staged Authorization (RBAC-SA) and a distributed Merkle root for
case tracking. These features support authorized resource access with an
efficient retrieval of provenance records. Particularly, comparing two methods
for extracting provenance records off chain storage retrieval with Merkle root
verification and a brute-force search the offchain method is significantly
better, especially as the blockchain size and number of cases increase. We also
found that our distributed Merkle root creation slightly increases smart
contract processing time but significantly improves history access. Overall, we
show that Forensiblock offers secure, efficient, and reliable handling of
digital forensic dataComment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication.
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