489 research outputs found

    Improving Access and Mental Health for Youth Through Virtual Models of Care

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    The overall objective of this research is to evaluate the use of a mobile health smartphone application (app) to improve the mental health of youth between the ages of 14–25 years, with symptoms of anxiety/depression. This project includes 115 youth who are accessing outpatient mental health services at one of three hospitals and two community agencies. The youth and care providers are using eHealth technology to enhance care. The technology uses mobile questionnaires to help promote self-assessment and track changes to support the plan of care. The technology also allows secure virtual treatment visits that youth can participate in through mobile devices. This longitudinal study uses participatory action research with mixed methods. The majority of participants identified themselves as Caucasian (66.9%). Expectedly, the demographics revealed that Anxiety Disorders and Mood Disorders were highly prevalent within the sample (71.9% and 67.5% respectively). Findings from the qualitative summary established that both staff and youth found the software and platform beneficial

    The Impact of Digital Technologies on Public Health in Developed and Developing Countries

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    This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on String Processing and Information Retrieval, ICOST 2020, held in Hammamet, Tunisia, in June 2020.* The 17 full papers and 23 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. They cover topics such as: IoT and AI solutions for e-health; biomedical and health informatics; behavior and activity monitoring; behavior and activity monitoring; and wellbeing technology. *This conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic

    Development of Secure Software : Rationale, Standards and Practices

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    The society is run by software. Electronic processing of personal and financial data forms the core of nearly all societal and economic activities, and concerns every aspect of life. Software systems are used to store, transfer and process this vital data. The systems are further interfaced by other systems, forming complex networks of data stores and processing entities.This data requires protection from misuse, whether accidental or intentional. Elaborate and extensive security mechanisms are built around the protected information assets. These mechanisms cover every aspect of security, from physical surroundings and people to data classification schemes, access control, identity management, and various forms of encryption. Despite the extensive information security effort, repeated security incidents keep compromising our financial assets, intellectual property, and privacy. In addition to the direct and indirect cost, they erode the trust in the very foundation of information security: availability, integrity, and confidentiality of our data. Lawmakers at various national and international levels have reacted by creating a growing body of regulation to establish a baseline for information security. Increased awareness of information security issues has led to extend this regulation to one of the core issues in secure data processing: security of the software itself. Information security contains many aspects. It is generally classified into organizational security, infrastructure security, and application security. Within application security, the various security engineering processes and techniques utilized at development time form the discipline of software security engineering. The aim of these security activities is to address the software-induced risk toward the organization, reduce the security incidents and thereby lower the lifetime cost of the software. Software security engineering manages the software risk by implementing various security controls right into the software, and by providing security assurance for the existence of these controls by verification and validation. A software development process has typically several objectives, of which security may form only a part. When security is not expressly prioritized, the development organizations have a tendency to direct their resources to the primary requirements. While producing short-term cost and time savings, the increased software risk, induced by a lack of security and assurance engineering, will have to be mitigated by other means. In addition to increasing the lifetime cost of software, unmitigated or even unidentified risk has an increased chance of being exploited and cause other software issues. This dissertation concerns security engineering in agile software development. The aim of the research is to find ways to produce secure software through the introduction of security engineering into the agile software development processes. Security engineering processes are derived from extant literature, industry practices, and several national and international standards. The standardized requirements for software security are traced to their origins in the late 1960s, and the alignment of the software engineering and security engineering objectives followed from their original challenges to the current agile software development methods. The research provides direct solutions to the formation of security objectives in software development, and to the methods used to achieve them. It also identifies and addresses several issues and challenges found in the integration of these activities into the development processes, providing directly applicable and clearly stated solutions for practical security engineering problems. The research found the practices and principles promoted by agile and lean software development methods to be compatible with many security engineering activities. Automated, tool-based processes and the drive for efficiency and improved software quality were found to directly support the security engineering techniques and objectives. Several new ways to integrate software engineering into agile software development processes were identified. Ways to integrate security assurance into the development process were also found, in the form of security documentation, analyses, and reviews. Assurance artifacts can be used to improve software design and enhance quality assurance. In contrast, detached security engineering processes may create security assurance that serves only purposes external to the software processes. The results provide direct benefits to all software stakeholders, from the developers and customers to the end users. Security awareness is the key to more secure software. Awareness creates a demand for security, and the demand gives software developers the concrete objectives and the rationale for the security work. This also creates a demand for new security tools, processes and controls to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software security engineering. At first, this demand is created by increased security regulation. The main pressure for change will emanate from the people and organizations utilizing the software: security is a mandatory requirement, and software must provide it. This dissertation addresses these new challenges. Software security continues to gain importance, prompting for new solutions and research.Ohjelmistot ovat keskeinen osa yhteiskuntamme perusinfrastruktuuria. Merkittävä osa sosiaalisesta ja taloudellisesta toiminnastamme perustuu tiedon sähköiseen käsittelyyn, varastointiin ja siirtoon. Näitä tehtäviä suorittamaan on kehitetty merkittävä joukko ohjelmistoja, jotka muodostavat mutkikkaita tiedon yhteiskäytön mahdollistavia verkostoja. Tiedon suojaamiseksi sen ympärille on kehitetty lukuisia suojamekanismeja, joiden tarkoituksena on estää tiedon väärinkäyttö, oli se sitten tahatonta tai tahallista. Suojausmekanismit koskevat paitsi ohjelmistoja, myös niiden käyttöympäristöjä ja käyttäjiä sekä itse käsiteltävää tietoa: näitä mekanismeja ovat esimerkiksi tietoluokittelut, tietoon pääsyn rajaaminen, käyttäjäidentiteettien hallinta sekä salaustekniikat. Suojaustoimista huolimatta tietoturvaloukkaukset vaarantavat sekä liiketoiminnan ja yhteiskunnan strategisia tietovarantoj että henkilökohtaisia tietojamme. Taloudellisten menetysten lisäksi hyökkäykset murentavat luottamusta tietoturvan kulmakiviin: tiedon luottamuksellisuuteen, luotettavuuteen ja sen saatavuuteen. Näiden tietoturvan perustusten suojaamiseksi on laadittu kasvava määrä tietoturvaa koskevia säädöksiä, jotka määrittävät tietoturvan perustason. Lisääntyneen tietoturvatietoisuuden ansiosta uusi säännöstö on ulotettu koskemaan myös turvatun tietojenkäsittelyn ydintä,ohjelmistokehitystä. Tietoturva koostuu useista osa-alueista. Näitä ovat organisaatiotason tietoturvakäytännöt, tietojenkäsittelyinfrastruktuurin tietoturva, sekä tämän tutkimuksen kannalta keskeisenä osana ohjelmistojen tietoturva. Tähän osaalueeseen sisältyvät ohjelmistojen kehittämisen aikana käytettävät tietoturvatekniikat ja -prosessit. Tarkoituksena on vähentää ohjelmistojen organisaatioille aiheuttamia riskejä, tai poistaa ne kokonaan. Ohjelmistokehityksen tietoturva pyrkii pienentämään ohjelmistojen elinkaarikustannuksia määrittämällä ja toteuttamalla tietoturvakontrolleja suoraan ohjelmistoon itseensä. Lisäksi kontrollien toimivuus ja tehokkuus osoitetaan erillisten verifiointija validointimenetelmien avulla. Tämä väitöskirjatutkimus keskittyy tietoturvatyöhön osana iteratiivista ja inkrementaalista ns. ketterää (agile) ohjelmistokehitystä. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on löytää uusia tapoja tuottaa tietoturvallisia ohjelmistoja liittämällä tietoturvatyö kiinteäksi osaksi ohjelmistokehityksen prosesseja. Tietoturvatyön prosessit on johdettu alan tieteellisestä ja teknillisestä kirjallisuudesta, ohjelmistokehitystyön vallitsevista käytännöistä sekä kansallisista ja kansainvälisistä tietoturvastandardeista. Standardoitujen tietoturvavaatimusten kehitystä on seurattu aina niiden alkuajoilta 1960-luvulta lähtien, liittäen ne ohjelmistokehityksen tavoitteiden ja haasteiden kehitykseen: nykyaikaan ja ketterien menetelmien valtakauteen saakka. Tutkimuksessa esitetään konkreettisia ratkaisuja ohjelmistokehityksen tietoturvatyön tavoitteiden asettamiseen ja niiden saavuttamiseen. Tutkimuksessa myös tunnistetaan ongelmia ja haasteita tietoturvatyön ja ohjelmistokehityksen menetelmien yhdistämisessä, joiden ratkaisemiseksi tarjotaan toimintaohjeita ja -vaihtoehtoja. Tutkimuksen perusteella iteratiivisen ja inkrementaalisen ohjelmistokehityksen käytäntöjen ja periaatteiden yhteensovittaminen tietoturvatyön toimintojen kanssa parantaa ohjelmistojen laatua ja tietoturvaa, alentaen täten kustannuksia koko ohjelmiston ylläpitoelinkaaren aikana. Ohjelmistokehitystyön automatisointi, työkaluihin pohjautuvat prosessit ja pyrkimys tehokkuuteen sekä korkeaan laatuun ovat suoraan yhtenevät tietoturvatyön menetelmien ja tavoitteiden kanssa. Tutkimuksessa tunnistettiin useita uusia tapoja yhdistää ohjelmistokehitys ja tietoturvatyö. Lisäksi on löydetty tapoja käyttää dokumentointiin, analyyseihin ja katselmointeihin perustuvaa tietoturvan todentamiseen tuotettavaa materiaalia osana ohjelmistojen suunnittelua ja laadunvarmistusta. Erillisinä nämä prosessit johtavat tilanteeseen, jossa tietoturvamateriaalia hyödynnetään pelkästään ohjelmistokehityksen ulkopuolisiin tarpeisiin. Tutkimustulokset hyödyttävät kaikkia sidosryhmiä ohjelmistojen kehittäjistä niiden tilaajiin ja loppukäyttäjiin. Ohjelmistojen tietoturvatyö perustuu tietoon ja koulutukseen. Tieto puolestaan lisää kysyntää, joka luo tietoturvatyölle konkreettiset tavoitteet ja perustelut jo ohjelmistokehitysvaiheessa. Tietoturvatyön painopiste siirtyy torjunnasta ja vahinkojen korjauksesta kohti vahinkojen rakenteellista ehkäisyä. Kysyntä luo tarpeen myös uusille työkaluille, prosesseille ja tekniikoille, joilla lisätään tietoturvatyön tehokkuutta ja vaikuttavuutta. Tällä hetkellä kysyntää luovat lähinnä lisääntyneet tietoturvaa koskevat säädökset. Pääosa muutostarpeesta syntyy kuitenkin ohjelmistojen tilaajien ja käyttäjien vaatimuksista: ohjelmistojen tietoturvakyvykkyyden taloudellinen merkitys kasvaa. Tietoturvan tärkeys tulee korostumaan entisestään, lisäten tarvetta tietoturvatyölle ja tutkimukselle myös tulevaisuudessa

    The Impact of Digital Technologies on Public Health in Developed and Developing Countries

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    This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on String Processing and Information Retrieval, ICOST 2020, held in Hammamet, Tunisia, in June 2020.* The 17 full papers and 23 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. They cover topics such as: IoT and AI solutions for e-health; biomedical and health informatics; behavior and activity monitoring; behavior and activity monitoring; and wellbeing technology. *This conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic

    Embedded System Design

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    A unique feature of this open access textbook is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental knowledge in embedded systems, with applications in cyber-physical systems and the Internet of things. It starts with an introduction to the field and a survey of specification models and languages for embedded and cyber-physical systems. It provides a brief overview of hardware devices used for such systems and presents the essentials of system software for embedded systems, including real-time operating systems. The author also discusses evaluation and validation techniques for embedded systems and provides an overview of techniques for mapping applications to execution platforms, including multi-core platforms. Embedded systems have to operate under tight constraints and, hence, the book also contains a selected set of optimization techniques, including software optimization techniques. The book closes with a brief survey on testing. This fourth edition has been updated and revised to reflect new trends and technologies, such as the importance of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the Internet of things (IoT), the evolution of single-core processors to multi-core processors, and the increased importance of energy efficiency and thermal issues

    Learning through assessment

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    This book aims to contribute to the discourse of learning through assessment within a self-directed learning environment. It adds to the scholarship of assessment and self-directed learning within a face-to-face and online learning environment. As part of the NWU Self-Directed Learning Book Series, this book is devoted to scholarship in the field of self-directed learning, focusing on ongoing and envisaged assessment practices for self-directed learning through which learning within the 21st century can take place. This book acknowledges and emphasises the role of assessment as a pedagogical tool to foster self-directed learning during face-to-face and online learning situations. The way in which higher education conceptualises teaching, learning and assessment has been inevitably changed due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, and now more than ever we need learners to be self-directed in their learning. Assessment plays a key role in learning and, therefore, we have to identify innovative ways in which learning can be assessed, and which are likely to become the new norm even after the pandemic has been brought under control. The goal of this book, consisting of original research, is to assist with the paradigm shift regarding the purpose of assessment, as well as providing new ideas on assessment strategies, methods and tools appropriate to foster self-directed learning in all modes of delivery

    The Deep Space Network, volume 3 Progress report, Mar. - Apr. 1971

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    Deep Space Network telecommunication and ground support equipment for planetary and interplanetary flight project

    Embedded System Design

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    A unique feature of this open access textbook is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental knowledge in embedded systems, with applications in cyber-physical systems and the Internet of things. It starts with an introduction to the field and a survey of specification models and languages for embedded and cyber-physical systems. It provides a brief overview of hardware devices used for such systems and presents the essentials of system software for embedded systems, including real-time operating systems. The author also discusses evaluation and validation techniques for embedded systems and provides an overview of techniques for mapping applications to execution platforms, including multi-core platforms. Embedded systems have to operate under tight constraints and, hence, the book also contains a selected set of optimization techniques, including software optimization techniques. The book closes with a brief survey on testing. This fourth edition has been updated and revised to reflect new trends and technologies, such as the importance of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the Internet of things (IoT), the evolution of single-core processors to multi-core processors, and the increased importance of energy efficiency and thermal issues
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