12 research outputs found
Using laboratory to improve understanding of 802.3 physical characteristics
When teaching computer networks as part of a
Computer Engineering degree, emphasis is placed on
higher-layer protocols while Physical and Data-Link
layers usually play a secondary role. Physical aspects of
data communication are sometimes taught as an
independent, not-related, topic whereas Data-Link
concepts are “hard” to our students. We propose a new
lab experience in which students can see IEEE 802.3
frames in a new way; by using standard digital
oscilloscope we are able to go deeper into lower-level
layers. The lab session will be divided into two parts,
focusing on topics that are usually considered “hard” by
our students. The first part will focus on physical aspects
of a frame transmission whereas the second will focus on
MAC-layer. For example, topics like physical layer
synchronization, signal attenuation, 5-4-3 rule and even
Interframe Gap are exercised at the lab session. This
experience has been tested with a group of last year
students; we have analyzed students "own perception" of
previous knowledge of some related topics, the results
from a evaluation questionnaire (a small exam given out
to students) and students evaluation of this exercise.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843
A Proposal for a Robust Validated Weighted General Data Protection Regulation-based Scale to Assess the Quality of Privacy Policies of Mobile Health Applications: an eDelphi Study
Healthcare services are undergoing a digital transformation in which the Participatory Health Informatics field
has a key role. Within this field, studies aimed to assess the quality of digital tools, including mHealth apps, are conducted. Privacy
is one dimension of the quality of a mHealth app. Privacy consists of several components, including organizational, technical
and legal safeguards. Within legal safeguards, giving transparent information to the users on how their data is handled is
crucial. This information is usually disclosed to users through the privacy policy document. Assessing the quality of a privacy
policy is a complex task and several scales supporting this process have been proposed in the literature. However, these scales
are heterogeneous and even not very objective. In our previous study, we proposed a checklist of items guiding the assessment
of the quality of a mHealth app privacy policy, based on the General Data Protection Regulation.
Objective: To refine the robustness of our General Data Protection Regulation-based privacy scale to assess the quality of a
mHealth app privacy policy, to identify new items, and to assign weights for every item in the scale.
Methods: A two-round modified eDelphi study was conducted involving a privacy expert panel.
Results: After the Delphi process, all the items in the scale were considered „important“ or „very important“ (4 and 5 in a
5-point Likert scale, respectively) by most of the experts. One of the original items was suggested to be reworded, while 8 tentative
items were suggested. Only 2 of them were finally added after Round 2. 11 of the 16 items in the scale were considered
„very important“ (weight of 1), while the other 5 were considered „important“ (weight of 0.5).
Conclusions: The Benjumea privacy scale is a new robust tool to assess the quality of a mHealth app privacy policy, providing a
deeper and complementary analysis to other scales that assesses the general quality. Also, this robust scale provides a guideline
for the development of high-quality privacy policies of mHealth apps.Universidad de Sevilla and the Ministerio de Universidades of the Spanish Government under the Requalification of Spanish University System Program funded by European Union –NextGenerationEUCátedra de Telefónica “Inteligencia en la red“ of the Universidad de SevillaCátedra Indra “Sociedad Digital” of the Universidad de Sevill
Using Internet Protocols to Implement IEC 60870-5 Telecontrol Functions
The telecommunication networks of telecontrol systems
in electric utilities have undergone an innovation process.
This has removed many of their technical restrictions and made
it possible to consider carrying out telecontrol tasks with general
standard protocols instead of the specific ones that are used
currently. These are defined in the standards 60870-5, 60870-6,
and 61850 from the International Electrotechnical Commission,
among others. This paper is about the implementation, using
the services of general standard protocols, of the telecontrol
application functions defined by the standard IEC 60870-5-104.
The general protocols used to carry out telecontrol tasks are those
used in the Internet: the telecommunication network-management
protocol SNMPv3 (simple network management protocol version
3), the clock synchronization protocol network time protocol and
Secure SHell. With this new implementation, we have achieved,
among others, two important aims: 1) to improve performance
and, above all, 2) to solve the serious security problems present
in the telecontrol protocols currently being used. These problems
were presented by IEEE in an article published in the website
of the IEEE Standards Association. In this paper, the use of
general standard protocols to perform the telecontrol of electrical
networks is justified. The development of this paper—its achievements
and conclusions and the tools used—is detailed.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843
Choosing the Right Protocol Stack for an Open and Flexible Remote Unit
This paper presents some works made in the
development of communications software for an embedded open
core system. By using a Linux-based processor implemented on a
FPGA, we are developing the appropriate software in order to
implement a remote unit to be used in a telecontrol network. We
present an analysis of the physical devices needed and a
performance report of them. After that, we analyze the
requirements of the telecontrol network and the possibility of reusing
already implemented protocols in Linux instead of using
standard telecontrol protocols.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843
IEC-60870-5 application layer for an Open and Flexible Remote Unit
This paper presents the development and test of the
standard IEC-60870-5 application layer protocol for a Remote
Terminal Unit (RTU) based on open hardware and software. The
RTU hardware is an embedded system, a SoC-type design using
FPGA that has been programmed with the open core LEO. with
Linux operating system running over it, so both the hardware and
IOS are open source. For prototyping the GR-XC3S-1500 board
has been used. There is no open source code available for the IEC
standard protocols, so application layer protocol has to be
implemented. All the software design has been made in a PC
platform using standard development tools. The source code
generated for the protocol has been compiled with the standard
Linux gcc compiler in LEO.. Several tests have been made to
prove the right behavior of the protocol as well as its performance
over different transmission mediums.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843
Implementing IEC 60870-5 data link layer for an Open and Flexible Remote Unit
This paper presents an open source implementation
for a data-link layer protocol specified in IEC 60870, protocol
specification for telecontrol networks. It has been tested over
LEON an embedded system with a Linux based operating system.
Protocol engineering methods have been used in order to
implement the protocol. The standard is in natural language so
a formal language is needed to describe its behavior. A prototype
has also been created to simulate the protocol behavior.
The protocol has been tested on a real environment, using
PCs and LEON as primary and secondary stations, and different
physical layers, serial cable, radio frequency and GSM.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843
Ávila: acceso vía Internet a los laboratorios
ÁVILA es una herramienta desarrollada dentro del Departamento de Tecnología
Electrónica para acceder a los laboratorios de Redes y Comunicaciones vía
Internet. El objetivo más importante que se ha perseguido con esta herramienta es
permitir a los alumnos realizar prácticas de laboratorio de manera remota, ya que
se tiene un acceso completo a los equipos de comunicaciones como si se estuviera
in sit
Análisis de distintas metodologías de evaluación en prácticas de laboratorio en asignaturas de Redes de Computadores
En este artículo se presenta una comparativa entre
distintos esquemas de evaluación del alumnado en
las prácticas de laboratorio de Redes de
Computadores utilizados en los últimos años. Se
analizan tres esquemas distintos: 1) Evaluación
basada en memorias teóricas y cuestionarios
experimentales, 2) Evaluación práctica a práctica
basada en WebCT, 3) Evaluación final basada en
WebCT. Estos distintos sistemas persiguen como
objetivos aplicar técnicas de evaluación continua,
lograr un sistema de calificación individualizado
y, finalmente, homogeneizar las calificaciones
prácticas y teóricas. Se presenta un análisis de
cada uno de estos sistemas, en base al
cumplimiento o no de estos objetivos usándose,
para ello, los datos estadísticos de los seis últimos
cursos
Privacy Assessment in Mobile Health Apps: Scoping Review
Proyecto financiado y apoyado por V Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de SevillaBackground:
Privacy has always been a concern, especially in the health domain. The proliferation of mobile health (mHealth) apps has led to a large amount of sensitive data being generated. Some authors have performed privacy assessments of mHealth apps. They have evaluated diverse privacy components; however, different authors have used different criteria for their assessments.
Objective:
This scoping review aims to understand how privacy is assessed for mHealth apps, focusing on the components, scales, criteria, and scoring methods used. A simple taxonomy to categorize the privacy assessments of mHealth apps based on component evaluation is also proposed.
Methods:
We followed the methodology defined by Arksey and O’Malley to conduct a scoping review. Included studies were categorized based on the privacy component, which was assessed using the proposed taxonomy.
Results:
The database searches retrieved a total of 710 citations—24 of them met the defined selection criteria, and data were extracted from them. Even though the inclusion criteria considered articles published since 2009, all the studies that were ultimately included were published from 2014 onward. Although 12 papers out of 24 (50%) analyzed only privacy, 8 (33%) analyzed both privacy and security. Moreover, 4 papers (17%) analyzed full apps, with privacy being just part of the assessment. The evaluation criteria used by authors were heterogeneous and were based on their experience, the literature, and/or existing legal frameworks. Regarding the set of items used for the assessments, each article defined a different one. Items included app permissions, analysis of the destination, analysis of the content of communications, study of the privacy policy, use of remote storage, and existence of a password to access the app, among many others. Most of the included studies provided a scoring method that enables the comparison of privacy among apps.
Conclusions:
The privacy assessment of mHealth apps is a complex task, as the criteria used by different authors for their evaluations are very heterogeneous. Although some studies about privacy assessment have been conducted, a very large set of items to evaluate privacy has been used up until now. In-app information and privacy policies are primarily utilized by the scientific community to extract privacy information from mHealth apps. The creation of a scale based on more objective criteria is a desirable step forward for privacy assessment in the future
Privacy in Mobile Health Applications for Breast Cancer Patients
Privacy is a major concern for breast cancer
patients. When patients use mobile health applications
(mHealth apps), many sensitive data are handled by the
application developers. General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) arises as a solution to privacy issues. In this paper, we
analyze the privacy policy of a sample of mHealth apps for
breast cancer patients, developing a scale to check if GDPR is
complied. Despite privacy is a key factor in the adoption of the
use of mHealth apps, the low level of compliance with the
GDPR of the analyzed applications was quite surprising. Thus,
application developers must be concerned about this matter