Mobile network architecture evolution toward 5G

As a chain is as strong as its weakest element, so are the efficiency, flexibility, and robustness of a mobile network, which relies on a range of different functional elements and mechanisms. Indeed, the mobile network architecture needs particular attention when discussing the evolution of 3GPP EPS because it is the architecture that integrates the many different future technologies into one mobile network. This article discusses 3GPP EPS mobile network evolution as a whole, analyzing specific architecture properties that are critical in future 3GPP EPS releases. In particular, this article discusses the evolution toward a "network of functions," network slicing, and software-defined mobile network control, management, and orchestration. Furthermore, the roadmap for the future evolution of 3GPP EPS and its technology components is detailed and relevant standards defining organizations are listed.This work has been performed in the framework of the H2020-ICT-2014-2 project 5G NORMA

Driverless Finance

While safety concerns are at the forefront of the debate about driverless cars, such concerns seem to be less salient when it comes to the increasingly sophisticated algorithms driving the financial system. This Article argues, however, that a precautionary approach to sophisticated financial algorithms is justified by the potential enormity of the social costs of financial collapse. Using the algorithm-driven fintech business models of robo-investing, marketplace lending, high frequency trading and token offerings as case studies, this Article illustrates how increasingly sophisticated algorithms (particularly those capable of machine learning) can exponentially exacerbate complexity, speed and correlation within the financial system, rendering the system more fragile. This Article also explores how such algorithms may undermine some of the regulatory reforms implemented in the wake of the Financial Crisis to make the financial system more robust. Through its analysis, this Article demonstrates that the algorithmic automation of finance (a phenomenon I refer to as “driverless finance”) deserves close attention from a financial stability perspective. This Article argues that regulators should become involved with the processes by which the relevant algorithms are being created, and that such efforts should begin immediately – while the technology is still in its infancy and remains somewhat susceptible to regulatory influence

Comparison of Approaches to Management of Large Marine Areas

In order to learn more about the different approaches to managing large-scale marine areas, their comparative merits, and the synergies and overlaps between them, Conservation International (CI) commissioned this independent analysis of several widely applied models. Since 2004, CI, together with a multitude of partners, has been developing the Seascapes model to manage large, multiple-use marine areas in which government authorities, private organizations, and other stakeholders cooperate to conserve the diversity and abundance of marine life and to promote human well-being. The definition of the Seascapes approach and the identification of the essential elements of a functioning Seascape were built from the ground up, informed by the extensive field experience of numerous marine management practitioners. Although the report was commissioned by CI, the views expressed in this report are those of the authors; they were charged with providing a critical examination of all the assessed approaches, including the Seascapes approach. This analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. This will help us -- and, we hope, other readers -- to identify ways to work together to achieve even greater results through synergistic efforts

Semantic privacy-preserving framework for electronic health record linkage

The combination of digitized health information and web-based technologies offers many possibilities for data analysis and business intelligence. In the healthcare and biomedical research domain, applications depending on electronic health records (EHRs) identify privacy preservation as a major concern. Existing solutions cannot always satisfy the evolving research demands such as linking patient records across organizational boundaries due to the potential for patient re-identification. In this work, we show how semantic methods can be applied to support the formulation and enforcement of access control policy whilst ensuring that privacy leakage can be detected and prevented. The work is illustrated through a case study associated with the Australasian Diabetes Data Network (ADDN – www.addn.org.au), the national paediatric type-1 diabetes data registry, and the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN – www.aurin.org.au) platform that supports Australia-wide access to urban and built environment data sets. We demonstrate that through extending the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) with semantic capabilities, finer-grained access control encompassing data risk disclosure mechanisms can be supported. We discuss the contributions that can be made using this approach to socio-economic development and political management within business systems, and especially those situations where secure data access and data linkage is required

Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation

The ten most pressing Grand Challenges in Oceans Conservation were identified at the Oceans Big Think and described in a detailed working document:A Blue Revolution for Oceans: Reengineering Aquaculture for SustainabilityEnding and Recovering from Marine DebrisTransparency and Traceability from Sea to Shore:  Ending OverfishingProtecting Critical Ocean Habitats: New Tools for Marine ProtectionEngineering Ecological Resilience in Near Shore and Coastal AreasReducing the Ecological Footprint of Fishing through Smarter GearArresting the Alien Invasion: Combating Invasive SpeciesCombatting the Effects of Ocean AcidificationEnding Marine Wildlife TraffickingReviving Dead Zones: Combating Ocean Deoxygenation and Nutrient Runof

An Afro-Brazilian Landscape: African Oil Palms and Socioecological Change in Bahia, Brazil

Palm oil extracted from the African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is the world’s most produced vegetable oil, commanding a roughly 50 billion dollar global industry. In contrast to the agroindustrial firms and monocultures that dominate global production, a biodiverse cultural landscape of African oil palms in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia has for centuries supplied local alimentary and spiritual demands for palm oil—an essential resource in Afro-Brazilian cultures. Drawing on fieldwork, ethnography, archives, GIScience, quantitative analysis, and travelers’, rare, and secondary accounts, this dissertation provides the first comprehensive study of Bahia’s palm oil landscapes, cultures, and economies. Analyzing seven centuries of social and ecological change, the study contributes to environmental histories of colonialism and the African diaspora, and advances theories and practices of agricultural development, environmental governance, and the politics of knowledge. Native to West Africa, African oil palms have supported cultures and economies on that continent for millennia. During colonial overseas expansion, Elaeis guineensis and its products traversed the Atlantic as early African contributions to the Columbian Exchange of beings, biota, and ideas. The palm’s subsequent diffusion in Bahia combined African traditions of palm oil production and consumption with European and Indigenous knowledges in the Americas to found and sustain diasporic Afro-Brazilian cultures and economies. This study examines the early and ongoing development of Bahia’s African oil palm cultures and landscapes, connecting transatlantic cultural, ecological, and economic circulations to reconstruct the emergence of an Afro-Brazilian landscape. Building on its historical analyses, the study culminates with an ethnography of Bahia’s contemporary palm oil economy. Integrating theories of resistance, development, and complexity, the final chapter maps the constituents of, and flows of power through, Bahia’s palm oil economy to scrutinize the modern policies and interventions that seek to redirect and control the network. The dissertation concludes by juxtaposing Bahia’s Afro-Brazilian landscape with the epistemological constraints of modern development. It argues that diasporic knowledges, such as those underpinning Bahia’s palm oil economy, represent potent but generally untapped fonts of place-based development practice with potential to transform global palm oil production and enact more viable and abundant forms of development

Refinement and standardization of storage procedures for clonal crops. Global Public Goods Phase 2: Part 1. Project landscape and general status of clonal crop in vitro conservation technologies

Among the collective actions of the World Bank-funded Global Public Goods Phase II Project (GPG2), the following collaborative activity: “Refinement and standardization of storage procedures for clonal crops” was given to the CGIAR’s In Vitro Genebanks, represented by the Clonal Crop Task Force (CCTF) composed of genetic resources research staff from the four centres: Bioversity International, CIAT, CIP and IITA. These hold the in trust collections of Musa, cassava, potato, sweetpotato, yam and Andean root and tuber crops (ARTCs). The overarching aims of this activity were to: (1) review the status of vitro conservation in the context of the GPG2 project with an emphasis on the mandated clonal crops; (2) survey the facilities, storage protocols and practices of CGIAR’s clonal crop genebanks; (3) collate and review this information with a view to developing quality and risk management systems to support the production and validation of multi-crop best practice guidelines. Outputs from this activity are designated as a three part ‘trilogy’: Part I, entitled “Project landscape and general status of clonal crop in vitro conservation technologies” introduces the GPG2 project within the CGIAR landscape and overviews the status of in vitro plant conservation in the wider conservation community of practice. This part describes the role of risk and quality management for the effective maintenance of in vitro genebanks in the context of research and the development and validation of best practices