Beyond OAIS : towards a reliable and consistent digital preservation implementation framework

Current work in digital preservation (DP) is dominated by the "Open Archival Information System" (OAIS) reference framework specified by the international standard ISO 14721:2003. This is a useful aid to understanding the concepts, main functional components and the basic data flows within a DP system, but does not give specific guidance on implementation-level issues. In this paper we suggest that there is a need for a reference architecture which goes beyond OAIS to address such implementationlevel issues - to specify minimum requirements in respect of the policies, processes, and metadata required to measure and validate repository trustworthiness in respect of the authenticity, integrity, renderability, meaning, and retrievability of the digital materials preserved. The suggestion is not that a particular way of implementing OAIS be specified, but, rather that general guidelines on implementation are required if the term 'OAIS-compliant' is to be meaningful in the sense of giving an assurance of attaining and maintaining an operationally adequate or better level of long-term reliability, consistency, and crosscompatibility in implemented DP systems that is measurable, verifiable, manageable, and (as far as possible) futureproofed

Framework for a Case Study Based Course in Safety and Mission Assurance in Human Spaceflight

The feasibility of sending humans to space primarily relies on: is it safe enough? There are few to no courses offered in engineering curriculums that address Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) for space systems, and there is a lack of instruction of safety culture, where ethic plays a major role, in current engineering educational strategies, which produces an academic gap. This research proposes a learner-centered course framework to improve engineering teaching strategies and address conceptual understanding of systems engineering, while avoiding single-solution approaches. The framework is also tailored to be interdisciplinary with a macroscopic level overview. Research on ethics shows that ethical behavior is influenced by the introduction of motivational factors in addition to the decision-making process. Theoretical models predict that teaching strategies based on real-life scenarios also provide superior exposure to ethical decision making. Case studies of significant events in human spaceflight will give students real-life scenarios to which they can connect with. If significant case studies of human spaceflight accidents, incidents, and close calls are used in the classroom to teach S&MA concepts, students can connect on an emotional level to the event, making them aware of how integrity, ethics, and safety culture play a role in the engineering decision-making aspect of human spaceflight. By showing both the efficiency of case studies in teaching engineering concepts and the ability of case studies to promote ethical decision making and behavior, this approach promotes students performing with integrity, accountability, and responsibility in safety culture in the workforce

Understanding and Specifying Information Security Needs to Support the Delivery of High Quality Security Services

In this paper we present an approach for specifying and prioritizing information security requirements in organizations. It is important to prioritize security requirements since hundred per cent security is\ud not achievable and the limited resources available should be directed to satisfy the most important ones. We propose to explicitly link security requirements with the organization’s business vision, i.e. to provide business\ud rationale for security requirements. The rationale is then used as a basis for comparing the importance of different security requirements.\ud Furthermore we discuss how to integrate the aforementioned solution concepts into a service level management process for security services, which is an important step in IT Governance. We validate our approach by way of a focus group session

Ethics and morality in Dworkin's political philosophy

Dworkin`s political theory is characterized by the interpretative integrity of morality, law, and politics, the so-called “hedgehog’s approach”. The interpretative integrity approach functions on multiple levels. Firstly, philosophical foundations of his theory of justice are linked to his conception of just liberal society and state. Secondly, from the perspective of political morality, interpretative concepts of law and morality are internally connected, in addition to interpretative concepts of equality, liberty, and democracy. Thirdly, from the perspective of philosophical foundations, individual ethics, personal morality and political morality are mutually connected. The aforementioned ethical and moral foundations are also related – in a wider sense of philosophical foundations - with his gnoseological conception regarding value concepts in law, politics and morality, and with his episthemological conception regarding an objective truth in the field of values, in a sense that the value concepts are interpretative and can be objectively true when articulated in accordance with methodological rules and standards of a »reflexive equilibrium« and an interpretative integrity, and in accordance with the so-called internal scepticism in the context of value pluralism. The term “ethics” in a “narrower” sense refers to individual ethics, the study of how to live well, while the “ethics” in a “broader” sense refers to personal morality, the study of how we must treat other people. The term “morality” however, is used primarily to denote a political morality, the issue of how a sovereign power should treat its citizens. Philosophical foundations of Dworkin`s political theory of justice, his conception of two cardinal values of humanity, his concievement of individual ethics, personal morality and political morality will be in the focus of consideration

Does organic farming face distinctive livestock welfare issues? - A conceptual analysis

The recent development and growth of organic livestock farming and the related development of national and international regulations has fuelled discussions among scientists and philosophers concerning the proper conceptualisation of animal welfare. These discussions on livestock welfare in organic farming draw on the conventional discussions and disputes on animal welfare, which involve issues such as different definitions of welfare (clinical health, absence of suffering, sum of positive and negative experiences, etc.), the possibility for objective measures of animal welfare and the acceptable level of welfare. It seems clear that livestock welfare is a value-laden concept and that animal welfare science cannot be made independent of questions of values and ethics. The question investigated here is whether those values that underpin organic farming, in particular, also affect the interpretation of livestock welfare and, if so, how. While some of the issues raised in connection with organic farming are relatively uncontroversial, others are not. The introduction of organic farming values seems to introduce new criteria for what counts a good animal welfare, as well as a different ethical basis for taking moral decisions on welfare. Organic farming embodies distinctive systemic or communitarian ethical ideas and the organic values are connected to a systemic conception of nature, of agriculture, of the farm and of the animal. The new criteria of welfare are related to concepts such as naturalness, harmony, integrity and care. While the organic values overlap with those involved in the conventional discussion of animal welfare, some of them suggest a need to set new priorities and to re-conceptualise animal welfare – for example, with respect to 'naturalness', in relation to the possibilities for expression of natural behaviour and in relation to animal integrity as a concept for organismic harmony. The organic perspective also seems to suggest a wider range of solutions to welfare problems than changes in farm routines or operations on the animals. The systemic solutions include the choice and reproduction of suitable breeds, changes in the farm structure, and changes in the larger production and consumption system - including consumer perceptions and preferences. But the organic values may also call for sacrifices of individual welfare in a conventional sense in order to advance welfare from the perspective of organic farming. Whether this is good or bad cannot be decided without entering into an inquiry and discussion of the values and ethics involved

A grounded theory model of auditor-client negotiations

The central research question addressed in this paper is 'How do companies and their auditors resolve important audit issues?' In-depth interviews are conducted with the audit partners and finance directors of a varied group of six major UK listed companies who had recently experienced audit interactions involving 22 significant accounting issues. A grounded theory model is developed of the negotiation process and the factors that influence the nature of the outcome of interactions. This model identifies, as principal analytical categories, a range of general relationship factors and specific accounting issue factors that influence aspects of the negotiation process. These aspects include the parties involved, the strategies adopted, the quality of the financial reporting outcome and the ease with which it is achieved. A secondary outcome of the research is that distinct categories of audit engagement partner are identified, termed the crusader, the safe pair of hands, the accommodator and the truster

Difference within Theology of Nature: The Strategies of Intelligibility and Credibility

This author examines and augments a particular aspect of Ian Barbour's well-known fourfold typology for relating religion and science (conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration) in order to clarify two options available for theology as it develops a robust view of creation in conversation with modern science. Within integration, Barbour identifies several subtypes, including "theology of nature." The Gifford Lectures of Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne provide important examples of theology of nature, yet differences between their approaches remain unexplained within Barbour's typology. An explanation is offered here, showing that Peacocke and Polkinghorne employ two distinct strategies to construct a theology of nature: the strategy of intelligibility and the strategy of credibility. After characterizing these strategies, the author suggests that at present the relationship between them takes the form of a dilemma

Stakeholder involvement, motivation, responsibility, communication: How to design usable security in e-Science

e-Science projects face a difficult challenge in providing access to valuable computational resources, data and software to large communities of distributed users. Oil the one hand, the raison d'etre of the projects is to encourage members of their research communities to use the resources provided. Oil the other hand, the threats to these resources from online attacks require robust and effective Security to mitigate the risks faced. This raises two issues: ensuring that (I) the security mechanisms put in place are usable by the different users of the system, and (2) the security of the overall system satisfies the security needs of all its different stakeholders. A failure to address either of these issues call seriously jeopardise the success of e-Science projects.The aim of this paper is to firstly provide a detailed understanding of how these challenges call present themselves in practice in the development of e-Science applications. Secondly, this paper examines the steps that projects can undertake to ensure that security requirements are correctly identified, and security measures are usable by the intended research community. The research presented in this paper is based Oil four case studies of c-Science projects. Security design traditionally uses expert analysis of risks to the technology and deploys appropriate countermeasures to deal with them. However, these case studies highlight the importance of involving all stakeholders in the process of identifying security needs and designing secure and usable systems.For each case study, transcripts of the security analysis and design sessions were analysed to gain insight into the issues and factors that surround the design of usable security. The analysis concludes with a model explaining the relationships between the most important factors identified. This includes a detailed examination of the roles of responsibility, motivation and communication of stakeholders in the ongoing process of designing usable secure socio-technical systems such as e-Science. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Security and computer forensics in web engineering education

The integration of security and forensics into Web Engineering curricula is imperative! Poor security in web-based applications is continuing to cost organizations millions and the losses are still increasing annually. Security is frequently taught as a stand-alone course, assuming that security can be 'bolted on' to a web application at some point. Security issues must be integrated into Web Engineering processes right from the beginning to create secure solutions and therefore security should be an integral part of a Web Engineering curriculum. One aspect of Computer forensics investigates failures in security. Hence, students should be aware of the issues in forensics and how to respond when security failures occur; collecting evidence is particularly difficult for Web-based applications