State of The Art and Hot Aspects in Cloud Data Storage Security

Along with the evolution of cloud computing and cloud storage towards matu- rity, researchers have analyzed an increasing range of cloud computing security aspects, data security being an important topic in this area. In this paper, we examine the state of the art in cloud storage security through an overview of selected peer reviewed publications. We address the question of defining cloud storage security and its different aspects, as well as enumerate the main vec- tors of attack on cloud storage. The reviewed papers present techniques for key management and controlled disclosure of encrypted data in cloud storage, while novel ideas regarding secure operations on encrypted data and methods for pro- tection of data in fully virtualized environments provide a glimpse of the toolbox available for securing cloud storage. Finally, new challenges such as emergent government regulation call for solutions to problems that did not receive enough attention in earlier stages of cloud computing, such as for example geographical location of data. The methods presented in the papers selected for this review represent only a small fraction of the wide research effort within cloud storage security. Nevertheless, they serve as an indication of the diversity of problems that are being addressed

Usability and Trust in Information Systems

The need for people to protect themselves and their assets is as old as humankind. People's physical safety and their possessions have always been at risk from deliberate attack or accidental damage. The advance of information technology means that many individuals, as well as corporations, have an additional range of physical (equipment) and electronic (data) assets that are at risk. Furthermore, the increased number and types of interactions in cyberspace has enabled new forms of attack on people and their possessions. Consider grooming of minors in chat-rooms, or Nigerian email cons: minors were targeted by paedophiles before the creation of chat-rooms, and Nigerian criminals sent the same letters by physical mail or fax before there was email. But the technology has decreased the cost of many types of attacks, or the degree of risk for the attackers. At the same time, cyberspace is still new to many people, which means they do not understand risks, or recognise the signs of an attack, as readily as they might in the physical world. The IT industry has developed a plethora of security mechanisms, which could be used to mitigate risks or make attacks significantly more difficult. Currently, many people are either not aware of these mechanisms, or are unable or unwilling or to use them. Security experts have taken to portraying people as "the weakest link" in their efforts to deploy effective security [e.g. Schneier, 2000]. However, recent research has revealed at least some of the problem may be that security mechanisms are hard to use, or be ineffective. The review summarises current research on the usability of security mechanisms, and discusses options for increasing their usability and effectiveness

Integration of multisensor hybrid reasoners to support personal autonomy in the smart home.

The deployment of the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm requires designing and integrating user-centered smart environments to assist people in their daily life activities. This research paper details an integration and validation of multiple heterogeneous sensors with hybrid reasoners that support decision making in order to monitor personal and environmental data at a smart home in a private way. The results innovate on knowledge-based platforms, distributed sensors, connected objects, accessibility and authentication methods to promote independent living for elderly people. TALISMAN+, the AmI framework deployed, integrates four subsystems in the smart home: (i) a mobile biomedical telemonitoring platform to provide elderly patients with continuous disease management; (ii) an integration middleware that allows context capture from heterogeneous sensors to program environment¿s reaction; (iii) a vision system for intelligent monitoring of daily activities in the home; and (iv) an ontologies-based integrated reasoning platform to trigger local actions and manage private information in the smart home. The framework was integrated in two real running environments, the UPM Accessible Digital Home and MetalTIC house, and successfully validated by five experts in home care, elderly people and personal autonomy

A review of key planning and scheduling in the rail industry in Europe and UK

Planning and scheduling activities within the rail industry have benefited from developments in computer-based simulation and modelling techniques over the last 25 years. Increasingly, the use of computational intelligence in such tasks is featuring more heavily in research publications. This paper examines a number of common rail-based planning and scheduling activities and how they benefit from five broad technology approaches. Summary tables of papers are provided relating to rail planning and scheduling activities and to the use of expert and decision systems in the rail industry.EPSR

EMI Security Architecture

This document describes the various architectures of the three middlewares that comprise the EMI software stack. It also outlines the common efforts in the security area that allow interoperability between these middlewares. The assessment of the EMI Security presented in this document was performed internally by members of the Security Area of the EMI project

Frameup: An Incriminatory Attack on Storj: A Peer to Peer Blockchain Enabled Distributed Storage System

In this work we present a primary account of frameup, an incriminatory attack made possible because of existing implementations in distributed peer to peer storage. The frameup attack shows that an adversary has the ability to store unencrypted data on the hard drives of people renting out their hard drive space. This is important to forensic examiners as it opens the door for possibly framing an innocent victim. Our work employs Storj as an example technology, due to its popularity and market size. Storj is a blockchain enabled system that allows people to rent out their hard drive space to other users around the world by employing a cryptocurrency token that is used to pay for the services rendered. It uses blockchain features like a transaction ledger, public/private key encryption, and cryptographic hash functions – but this work is not centered around blockchain. Our work discusses two frameup attacks, a preliminary and an optimized attack, both of which take advantage of Storj\u27s implementation. Results illustrate that Storj allows a potential adversary to store incriminating unencrypted files, or parts of files that are viewable on people\u27s systems when renting out their unused hard drive space. We offer potential solutions to mitigate our discovered attacks, a developed tool to review if a person has been a victim of a frameup attack, and a mechanism for showing that the files were stored on a hard drive without the renter\u27s knowledge. Our hope is that this work will inspire future security and forensics research directions in the exploration of distributed peer to peer storage systems that embrace blockchain and cryptocurrency tokens

Design and implementation of a behaviorally typed programming system for web services

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática.The growing use of the Internet as a global infrastructure for communication between distributed applications is leading to the development of a considerable amount of technologies to ease the deployment, description and data exchange among services and thus improve their interoperability. There is also a growing interest in the use of the “software as a service” business model where a software vendor develops and hosts applications to be used by its clients over the Internet. The use of these Web Services is provided through an API describing the interface of the service that can hide how the service provider hosts the application. This approach allows for the creation of an abstraction layer that offers additional capabilities without increasing the maintenance cost usually linked to the management of those machines (like software and hardware updates or just application/system configuration). However, the main tools provided by the standards and existing technology to combine these services usually only account for limited automatic verification techniques (based on standard signature checking of methods in interface descriptions) and thus relying the behavioral compatibility among services to the programmer. The programmer then becomes dependent on the quality of the documentation and the development time available to manually (and without formal guarantees) assure the correctness of the code. In this thesis, we propose a behavioral type system, in the context of yak, a prototype scripting language for web services, that enhances traditional typecheckers by allowing to statically check the correct usage of services (as remote or local objects). Our language uses behavioral annotations in the protocol descriptions, similar to regular expressions, that are translated to deterministic finite automatons during the typechecking phase. The intent of this work is to ease the creation and deployment of Web Services by providing a friendly integration of behavioral type concepts within a practical programming language, so to make the use of these services (with behavioral descriptions) transparent and effortless to the programmer. We also provide a full implementation of the interpreter, behavioral typechecker and run-time support system for the yak language, that may be used to develop prototypical systems and experiment with web services and behavioral type

Appreciative inquiry in evaluating the integrated primary oral health services in Quebec Cree communities

Introduction: L'intégration de la santé buccodentaire aux soins de santé primaires a été présentée comme une stratégie visant à réduire les inégalités en santé buccodentaire parmi les populations prioritaires telles que les communautés autochtones. Cependant, il existe encore peu de programmes de soins de santé buccodentaire intégrés aux soins primaires mis en œuvre dans le monde. Par conséquent, les objectifs de ce projet de recherche doctorale étaient: 1) de cartographier systématiquement les programmes disponibles et de faire le portrait de leurs résultats sur les soins intégrés de santé buccodentaire primaires dans les communautés autochtones, et 2) d'explorer comment et dans quelle mesure l'intégration de la santé buccodentaire dans les soins primaires répond aux besoins en santé buccodentaire des communautés cries du Québec. Méthodes: Objectif 1) Une étude de portée a été réalisée selon le cadre méthodologique proposé par Arksey & O'Malley et son extension par Levac et ses collègues. Nous avons effectué des recherches systématiques dans des bases de données électroniques, dans la littérature grise, ainsi que dans des sites Web d'organisations de santé autochtones, et les résultats ont été compilés à l'aide d'un résumé numérique et d'une analyse qualitative de contenu. Objectif 2) Une étude de cas multiples avec une approche qualitative et une méthodologie d'évaluation développementale a été utilisée pour explorer les soins de santé buccodentaire primaires au Conseil cri de la santé et des services sociaux de la Baie James (CCSSSBJ). En utilisant le modèle 4D d'enquête appréciative comme cadre conceptuel, un total de six discussions de groupe et 36 entretiens individuels ont été menés avec des patients autochtones, des prestataires de soins de santé et des gestionnaires. La collecte de données comprenait un examen de la documentation, des discussions de groupe et des entretiens individuels approfondis. L'analyse thématique a été utilisée pour l'analyse des données et a été réalisée autant à l'aide du logiciel Atlas-ti, que manuellement. Résultats: L'étude de portée a identifié 30 programmes de soins de santé buccodentaire primaires intégrés pour les communautés autochtones en Australie et en Amérique du Nord. Ces programmes ont été classés en quatre groupes: programmes de promotion et de prévention de la santé buccodentaire; services dentaires globaux; modèle de services fly-in, fly-out; et des services à distance utilisant une plateforme de télédentisterie. Ces programmes se sont avérés efficaces en améliorant leur l'accès aux soins de santé buccodentaire, les connaissances et les comportements perçus en matière de santé buccodentaire et l'état de santé buccodentaire. Les résultats de l'étude de cas ont révélé que la planification stratégique du CCSSSBJ a réussi à intégrer la santé buccodentaire aux soins de santé primaires. Les stratégies intégrées de soins buccodentaires au CCSSSBJ étaient déployés tant aux niveaux micro, méso que macro. Un leadership fort, une gestion organisée et structurée, des soins centrés sur le patient, la continuité des soins et des réseaux coordonnés, la co-localisation et des soins adaptés culturellement ont été les clés de succès. Les participants à l'étude souhaitaient une meilleure adéquation en ressources humaines et des rôles professionnels sans ambiguïté au niveau méso; augmenter la gestion de l'information au niveau méso dans le domaine grâce à une meilleure planification des rendez-vous, des dossiers de santé électroniques et des protocoles et directives d'orientation normalisés; ainsi que la sensibilisation aux médecines traditionnelles et l'incorporation des pratiques autochtones au niveau macro et dans le domaine normatif. De plus, les soins centrés sur le patient étaient rendus possibles par un environnement favorable et une prise de décision partagée, tandis que les soins de continuité relationnelle étaient facilités par la permanence professionnelle et une communication efficace. Conclusion: Les résultats de l'étude de la portée suggèrent que les programmes de soins de santé buccodentaire primaires intégrés, axés sur la communauté et culturellement appropriés, semblent efficaces et pertinents pour améliorer l'état de santé buccodentaire et l'accès aux soins des communautés autochtones. Notre étude de cas suggère que l'organisation du CCSSSBJ a intégré efficacement la santé buccodentaire. L'organisation pourrait étendre le niveau d'intégration à une intégration complète en élargissant les programmes publics de santé buccodentaire, en optimisant les ressources humaines, en améliorant la gestion organisationnelle, en favorisant une communication efficace et en intégrant les pratiques traditionnelles. Des évaluations basées sur les particularités de divers groupes de population sont nécessaires pour mieux comprendre les facteurs associés à l'intégration durable de la santé buccodentaire dans les services de santé.Introduction: The integration of oral health into primary health care has been introduced as a strategy to decrease oral health disparities among priority populations such as Indigenous communities. However, still there are few integrated primary oral health care programs implemented around the world. Therefore, the objectives of this doctoral research project were: 1) to systematically map the available programs and their outcomes on the integrated primary oral health care in Indigenous communities, and 2) to explore how and to what extent the integration of oral health into primary care addresses the oral health needs of the Quebec Cree communities. Methods: Objective 1) The scoping review was performed following the methodological framework proposed by Arksey & O'Malley and its extension by Levac and colleagues. We performed systematic searches through electronic databases, Indigenous health organizational websites as well as grey literature, and the findings were summarized using numeral summary and qualitative content analysis. Objective 2) A multiple-case-study design within a qualitative approach and developmental evaluation methodology was used to explore the primary oral health care at the Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay (CBHSSJB). Using the 4D model of appreciative inquiry as a study framework, a total of six focus group discussions and 36 individual interviews were conducted with patients, health care providers, and administrators. Data collection included documentation review, focus group discussions, and individual in-depth interviews. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis and was performed with the help of Atlas-ti software as well as manually. Results: The scoping review identified 30 programs on integrated primary oral health care for Indigenous communities in Australia and North America. These programs were classified into four groups: oral health promotion and prevention programs; comprehensive dental services; fly in, fly out dental services; and remote services using a teledentistry platform. These programs were found to be effective in improving oral health care access, oral health services, perceived oral health knowledge and behaviors, and oral health status of Indigenous people. The case study results found that CBHSSJB’s strategic planning has successfully integrated oral health within primary health care. The integrated oral health care strategies at CBHSSJB were distributed across micro, meso, and macro levels. Strong leadership, organized and structured administration, patient-centered care, continuity of care and coordinated networks, co-location, and culturally competent care were the keys for its success. Study participants, on the other hand, wished for better human resourcing and unambiguous professional roles at the meso level; augmenting information management at the meso level in the functional domain through better appointment scheduling, electronic health records, and standardized referral protocols and guidelines; as well as raising awareness of traditional medicines and incorporation of Indigenous oral health practice at the macro level and in the normative domain. In addition, patient-centered care was enabled by the supportive environment and shared decision-making, while relational continuity care was facilitated by professional permanence and effective communication. Conclusion: The scoping review results suggest that community-based and culturally appropriate integrated primary oral health care programs seem to be efficient and pertinent in improving the oral health status and access to care of Indigenous communities. Our case study suggests that the CBHSSJB organization has efficiently integrated oral health. The organization could extend the level of integration into full integration by expanding public oral health programs, optimizing human resources, improving organizational management, promoting effective communication, and integrating traditional oral health practices. Population-based evaluations are needed to better understand the factors associated with sustainable oral health integration in various populations

Essentials Of Service Design

This paper is a conspectus of service design for service scientists.Historically, science has been concerned with the discovery and study of natural and socially developed phenomena, and the role of design has been to create new artifacts and processes and to improve existing ones.Service has been an important part of the fabric of societal culture from ancient times, so the notion of service as the co-creation of value by provider and client is well established.It necessarily follows that the objective of service design is to add value by enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy of older service systems and to create newer ones with requisite attributes.This is a topic that has not been covered in traditional service science research.Thus, service design, as a discipline, seeks to facilitate the operation of the modern global economy that is now based on service.The necessary elements of service design are introduced and important concepts are identified