Method to Generate Disaster-Damage Map using 3D photometry and Crowd Sourcing

Thanks to the rapid progress of the Internet and mobile devices, information related to disaster areas can be collected through the Internet. To grasp the degree of damage in a disaster situation, the use of crowdsourcing for coordinating the individual efforts (micro tasks) of an enormous number of users (workers) on the Internet has been drawing attention as a means of quickly solving problems. However, the information gathered from the Internet is huge and diverse, so it is difficult to formulate as a crowdsourcing task. This paper proposes a conversion platform for the images of a disaster site photographed by various users as information about the site, integrating the images into a single map using 3D image processing, and providing the map to crowdsourcing as a micro task.Published in: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data) Date of Conference: 11-14 Dec. 2017 Conference Location: Boston, MA, US

Parallel swarm intelligence strategies for large-scale clustering based on MapReduce with application to epigenetics of aging

Clustering is an important technique for data analysis and knowledge discovery. In the context of big data, it becomes a challenging issue due to the huge amount of data recently collected making conventional clustering algorithms inappropriate. The use of swarm intelligence algorithms has shown promising results when applied to data clustering of moderate size due to their decentralized and self-organized behavior. However, these algorithms exhibit limited capabilities when large data sets are involved. In this paper, we developed a decentralized distributed big data clustering solution using three swarm intelligence algorithms according to MapReduce framework. The developed framework allows cooperation between the three algorithms namely particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization and artificial bees colony to achieve largely scalable data partitioning through a migration strategy. This latter reaps advantage of the combined exploration and exploitation capabilities of these algorithms to foster diversity. The framework is tested using amazon elastic map-reduce service (EMR) deploying up to 192 computer nodes and 30 gigabytes of data. Parallel metrics such as speed-up, size-up and scale-up are used to measure the elasticity and scalability of the framework. Our results are compared with their counterparts big data clustering results and show a significant improvement in terms of time and convergence to good quality solution. The developed model has been applied to epigenetics data clustering according to methylation features in CpG islands, gene body, and gene promoter in order to study the epigenetics impact on aging. Experimental results reveal that DNA-methylation changes slightly and not aberrantly with aging corroborating previous studies

Voronoi classfied and clustered constellation data structure for three-dimensional urban buildings

In the past few years, the growth of urban area has been increasing and has resulted immense number of urban datasets. This situation contributes to the difficulties in handling and managing issues related to urban area. Huge and massive datasets can degrade the performance of data retrieval and information analysis. In addition, urban environments are very difficult to manage because they involved with various types of data, such as multiple types of zoning themes in urban mixeduse development. Thus, a special technique for efficient data handling and management is necessary. In this study, a new three-dimensional (3D) spatial access method, the Voronoi Classified and Clustered Data Constellation (VOR-CCDC) is introduced. The VOR-CCDC data structure operates on the basis of two filters, classification and clustering. To boost up the performance of data retrieval, VORCCDC offers a minimal percentage of overlap among nodes and a minimal coverage area in order to avoid repetitive data entry and multi-path queries. Besides that, VOR-CCDC data structure is supplemented with an extra element of nearest neighbour information. Encoded neighbouring information in the Voronoi diagram allows VOR-CCDC to optimally explore the data. There are three types of nearest neighbour queries that are presented in this study to verify the VOR-CCDC’s ability in finding the nearest neighbour information. The queries are Single Search Nearest Neighbour query, k Nearest Neighbour (kNN) query and Reverse k Nearest Neighbour (RkNN) query. Each query is tested with two types of 3D datasets; single layer and multi-layer. The test demonstrated that VOR-CCDC performs the least amount of input/output than their best competitor, the 3D R-Tree. Besides that, VOR-CCDC is also tested for performance evaluation. The results indicate that VOR-CCDC outperforms its competitor by responding 60 to 80 percent faster to the query operation. In the future, VOR-CCDC structure is expected to be expanded for temporal and dynamic objects. Besides that, VOR-CCDC structure can also be used in other applications such as brain cell database for analysing the spatial arrangement of neurons or analysing the protein chain reaction in bioinformatics applications

Servicio web para el acceso a información sanitaria de pacientes renales

La e-Salud alude a la práctica de cuidados sanitarios apoyada en tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones, introduciendo dichas tecnologías en la vida de los pacientes, y haciendo que participen de forma activa en el cuidado de su salud. Con un número cada vez mayor de sistemas de e-Salud trabajando conjuntamente, se hace necesario que interoperen e intercambien información con el fin de mejorar la atención a los pacientes, reducir costes y hacer sostenibles los complejos sistemas sanitarios. Hacer que sistemas independientes interoperen no es una tarea sencilla pues dichos sistemas pueden trabajar internamente de maneras muy distintas. Por ello se hace necesario que, de cara a comunicarse con otros sistemas, se utilice un lenguaje común que todos entiendan. Ese lenguaje común puede ser convenido entre cada par de sistemas (protocolo propietario) o adoptado desde un estándar de interoperabilidad en salud. Este trabajo tiene por objeto, el diseño y desarrollo de un servicio web, siguiendo la especificación Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) de la organización Health Level 7 (HL7), para el acceso a información sanitaria almacenada en la base de datos de un sistema de e-Salud para monitorización remota de pacientes renales. Aunque el dominio de aplicación del servicio es la patología renal, los resultados son extensibles a cualquier otro sistema que gestione información de pacientes crónicos. Previo al diseño del servicio web, se ha llevado a cabo un profundo estudio del estándar, así como de su estado actual y los principales sistemas que lo utilizan o planean utilizar, con el objetivo de enmarcar nuestro trabajo en el contexto actual.e-Health alludes to healthcare supported in TICs, introducing these technologies into patient’s lifes, and making them participate in an active way in their own health care. With a growing number of e-Salud systems working all together, it is increasingly necessary that they are able to interoperate and share information, in order to improve patient’s care, reduce costs and help the complex sanitary systems to be sustainable. Getting independent systems into working together it’s not an easy task, because those systems could internally work in so many different ways. It is because of that sort of things that we need a common language for the systems to communicate, a language understandable by all of them. That common language could be agreed between each pair of systems (proprietary protocol) or adopted from an interoperability standard in health. The aim of this work is the design and development of a web service, following the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) specification from the HealthLevel 7(HL7) organization, for access the healthcare information stored in an e-Salud system for remote monitoring of renal patients. Although the service application domain is renal pathology, results could be extended to any other system used to manage chronicle patient’s information. Previous to the design of web service, it has conducted a thorough study of the standard, its current status and major systems that use or plan to use, in order to frame our work in the current context.Universidad de Sevilla. Grado en Ingeniería de Tecnologías de Telecomunicació

Plataforma ABAC para aplicações da IoT baseada na norma OASIS XACML

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaA IoT (Internet of Things) é uma área que apresenta grande potencial mas embora muitos dos seus problemas já terem soluções satisfatórias, a segurança permanece um pouco esquecida, mantendo-se um como questão ainda por resolver. Um dos aspectos da segurança que ainda não foi endereçado é o controlo de acessos. O controlo de acesso é uma forma de reforçar a segurança que envolve avaliar os pedidos de acesso a recursos e negar o acesso caso este não seja autorizado, garantindo assim a segurança no acesso a recursos críticos ou vulneráveis. O controlo de Acesso é um termo lato, existindo diversos modelos ou paradigmas possíveis, dos quais os mais significativos são: IBAC (Identity Based Access Control), RBAC (Role Based Access Control) and ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control). Neste trabalho será usado o ABAC, já que oferece uma maior flexibilidade comparativamente a IBAC e RBAC. Além disso, devido à sua natureza adaptativa o ABAC tem maior longevidade e menor necessidade de manutenção. A OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) desenvolveu a norma XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) para escrita/definição de políticas de acesso e pedidos de acesso, e de avaliação de pedidos sobre conjuntos de políticas com o propósito de reforçar o controlo de acesso sobre recursos. O XACML foi definido com a intenção de que os pedidos e as políticas fossem de fácil leitura para os humanos, garantindo, porém, uma estrutura bem definida que permita uma avaliação precisa. A norma XACML usa ABAC. Este trabalho tem o objetivo de criar uma plataforma de segurança que utilize os padrões ABAC e XACML que possa ser usado por outros sistemas, reforçando o controlo de acesso sobre recursos que careçam de proteção, e garantindo acesso apenas a sujeitos autorizadas. Vai também possibilitar a definição fina ou granular de regras e pedidos permitindo uma avaliação com maior precisão e um maior grau de segurança. Os casos de uso principais são grandes aplicações IoT, como aplicações Smart City, que inclui monitorização inteligente de tráfego, consumo de energia e outros recursos públicos, monitorização pessoal de saúde, etc. Estas aplicações lidam com grandes quantidades de informação (Big Data) que é confidencial e/ou pessoal. Existe um número significativo de soluções NoSQL (Not Only SQL) para resolver o problema do volume de dados, mas a segurança é ainda uma questão por resolver. Este trabalho vai usar duas bases de dados NoSQL: uma base de dados key-value (Redis) para armazenamento de políticas e uma base de dados wide-column (Cassandra) para armazenamento de informação de sensores e informação de atributos adicionais durante os testes.IoT (Internet of Things) is an area which offers great opportunities and although a lot of issues already have satisfactory solutions, security has remained somewhat unaddressed and remains to be a big issue. Among the security aspects, we emphasize access control. Access Control is a way of enforcing security that involves evaluating requests for accessing resources and denies access if it is unauthorised, therefore providing security for vulnerable resources. Access Control is a broad term that consists of several methodologies of which the most significant are: IBAC (Identity Based Access Control), RBAC (Role Based Access Control) and ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control). In this work ABAC will be used as it offers the most flexibility compared to IBAC and RBAC. Also, because of ABAC's adaptive nature, it offers longevity and lower maintenance requirements. OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) developed the XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) standard for writing/defining requests and policies and the evaluation of the requests over sets of policies for the purpose of enforcing access control over resources. It is defined so the requests and policies are readable by humans but also have a well defined structure allowing for precise evaluation. The standard uses ABAC. This work aims to create a security framework that utilizes ABAC and the XACML standard so that it can be used by other systems and enforce access control over resources that need to be protected by allowing access only to authorised subjects. It will also allow for fine grained defining of rules and requests for more precise evaluation and therefore a greater level of security. The primary use-case scenarios are large IoT applications such as Smart City applications including: smart traffic monitoring, energy and utility consumption, personal healthcare monitoring, etc. These applications deal with large quantities (Big Data) of confidential and/or personal data. A number of NoSQL (Not Only SQL) solutions exist for solving the problem of volume but security is still an issue. This work will use two NoSQL databases. A key-value database (Redis) for the storing of policies and a wide-column database (Cassandra) for storing sensor data and additional attribute data during testing