Secure Cloud-Edge Deployments, with Trust

Assessing the security level of IoT applications to be deployed to heterogeneous Cloud-Edge infrastructures operated by different providers is a non-trivial task. In this article, we present a methodology that permits to express security requirements for IoT applications, as well as infrastructure security capabilities, in a simple and declarative manner, and to automatically obtain an explainable assessment of the security level of the possible application deployments. The methodology also considers the impact of trust relations among different stakeholders using or managing Cloud-Edge infrastructures. A lifelike example is used to showcase the prototyped implementation of the methodology

Privacy, security, and trust issues in smart environments

Recent advances in networking, handheld computing and sensor technologies have driven forward research towards the realisation of Mark Weiser's dream of calm and ubiquitous computing (variously called pervasive computing, ambient computing, active spaces, the disappearing computer or context-aware computing). In turn, this has led to the emergence of smart environments as one significant facet of research in this domain. A smart environment, or space, is a region of the real world that is extensively equipped with sensors, actuators and computing components [1]. In effect the smart space becomes a part of a larger information system: with all actions within the space potentially affecting the underlying computer applications, which may themselves affect the space through the actuators. Such smart environments have tremendous potential within many application areas to improve the utility of a space. Consider the potential offered by a smart environment that prolongs the time an elderly or infirm person can live an independent life or the potential offered by a smart environment that supports vicarious learning

Professional buyers and the value proposition

Lusch (2011) considers Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL) to be an appropriate lens through which to view supply chain research, and suggests it be used to better understand value. The authors, accepting a founding premise of S-DL that value is phenomenologically determined by the recipient, adopt a qualitative methodology to penetrate the inherent complexity and commercial confidentiality of the buyer-seller relationship. In particular the authors make a comparative evaluation as to how the wider, psychological needs of the buyer interact with the effects of the organisational goals of their businesses. The study uses a longitudinal research design, involving web-based diaries and follow-up interviews to develop the empirical understanding of the dominant patterns of buyer value perception that, within the context of the investigation, both challenge extant thinking and informs the debate regarding the approaches to combining value creation and value capture (Skilton, 2014). The explanations offered suggest that exchange value achieves a greater buyer focus than utility value, and acknowledges the relative importance of buyer value perceptions that are not directly aligned with organisational objectives. These findings, it is argued, may cause organisations to reflect on their procurement policies and procedures as they seek to engage with potential suppliers

Trust Evaluation of a System for an Activity

International audienceWhen users need to perform a digital activity, they evaluate available systems according to their functionality, ease of use, QoS, and/or economical as- pects. Recently, trust has become another key factor for such evaluation. Two main issues arise in the trust management research community. First, how to de- fine the trust in an entity, knowing that this can be a person, a digital or a physical resource. Second, how to evaluate such value of trust in a system as a whole for a particular activity. Defining and evaluating trust in systems is an open problem because there is no consensus on the used approach. In this work we propose an approach applicable to any kind of system. The distinctive feature of our pro- posal is that, besides taking into account the trust in the different entities the user depends on to perform an activity, it takes into consideration the architecture of the system to determine its trust level. Our goal is to enable users to have a per- sonal comparison between different systems for the same application needs and to choose the one satisfying their expectations. This paper introduces our approach, which is based on probability theory, and presents ongoing results

Risk assessment and relationship management: practical approach to supply chain risk management

The literature suggests the need for incorporating the risk construct into the measurement of organisational performance, although few examples are available as to how this might be undertaken in relation to supply chains. A conceptual framework for the development of performance and risk management within the supply chain is evolved from the literature and empirical evidence. The twin levels of dyadic performance/risk management and the management of a portfolio of performance/risks is addressed, employing Agency Theory to guide the analysis. The empirical evidence relates to the downstream management of dealerships by a large multinational organisation. Propositions are derived from the analysis relating to the issues and mechanisms that may be employed to effectively manage a portfolio of supply chain performance and risks

Indicators: tools for informing, monitoring or controlling?

Today, indicators are produced and used worldwide; across all levels and sectors of society; by public, private and civil society actors; for a variety of purposes, ranging from knowledge-provision to administrative control. While the use of quantitative data as policy support, including policy formulation, has a long history, recent decades have seen the rise of what some have called an ‘indicator industry’ (for example, Hezri and Hasan 2004), focused especially on the production of environmental and sustainability indicators, within a framework variously called ‘governance by numbers' (Miller 2001; Lascoumes and Le Galès 2005; Jackson 2011), ‘management by numbers’ in public service (for example, Hood 2007) or ‘numbers discourse’ (Jackson 2011, p. 23). Indicators are generally expected to enhance the rationality of policymaking and public debate by providing a supposedly more objective, robust, and reliable information base. Indicators can operate as ‘boundary objects’ (for example, Turnhout 2009; Star 2010), catering to both technocratic and deliberative ideals, by combining ‘hard facts’ and modelling with collective reasoning and ‘speculation’. Research and development work in the area has hitherto overwhelmingly concentrated on improving the technical quality of indicators, while the fate of indicators in policymaking and the associated sociopolitical aspects have attracted little attention. This chapter focuses on this neglected area of indicator research, by providing an overview of the multiple types of existing indicators, as well as their use and influence in various venues of policymaking. Empirical examples are drawn mainly from the fields of environmental and sustainability indicators

Reliable Federated Learning for Mobile Networks

Federated learning, as a promising machine learning approach, has emerged to leverage a distributed personalized dataset from a number of nodes, e.g., mobile devices, to improve performance while simultaneously providing privacy preservation for mobile users. In the federated learning, training data is widely distributed and maintained on the mobile devices as workers. A central aggregator updates a global model by collecting local updates from mobile devices using their local training data to train the global model in each iteration. However, unreliable data may be uploaded by the mobile devices (i.e., workers), leading to frauds in tasks of federated learning. The workers may perform unreliable updates intentionally, e.g., the data poisoning attack, or unintentionally, e.g., low-quality data caused by energy constraints or high-speed mobility. Therefore, finding out trusted and reliable workers in federated learning tasks becomes critical. In this article, the concept of reputation is introduced as a metric. Based on this metric, a reliable worker selection scheme is proposed for federated learning tasks. Consortium blockchain is leveraged as a decentralized approach for achieving efficient reputation management of the workers without repudiation and tampering. By numerical analysis, the proposed approach is demonstrated to improve the reliability of federated learning tasks in mobile networks

The human side of leadership: Inspirational leadership effects on follower characteristics and happiness at work (HAW)

Leadership has received significant attention over the past years. Now is the time to refine how leaders impact on followers and their attitudes. This study examines how inspirational leaders influence follower characteristics (FC), and in turn, their happiness at work. In this study, the mediating effect of follower characteristics in the relationship between inspirational leadership and happiness at work was specifically examined. Data was gathered from 389 frontline banking employees working in Italian and Spanish banks. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed a positive partial mediating role of follower characteristics in the relationship between inspirational leadership and happiness at work. Results showed that inspirational leadership exerts a more positive influence on followers' happiness at work when follower characteristics are more positive. Our discussion highlights the importance of understanding the role of the follower characteristics that are involved in the effectiveness of inspirational leadership