A rule-based trust negotiation system

Open distributed environments, such as the World Wide Web, facilitate information sharing but provide limited support to the protection of sensitive information and resources. Trust negotiation (TN) frameworks have been proposed as a better solution for open environments, in which parties may get in touch and interact without being previously known to each other. In this paper, we illustrate Protune, a rule-based TN system. By describing Protune, we will illustrate the advantages that arise from an advanced rule-based approach in terms of deployment efforts, user friendliness, communication efficiency, and interoperability. The generality and technological feasibility of Protune's approach are assessed through an extensive analysis and experimental evaluations

A trust management package for policy-driven protection & personalization of web content

This paper presents an advanced approach to access control on the Web. It presents an easy deployable package that exploits emerging trust negotiation approaches by integrating them in a Web scenario. In such a scenario advance decisions can be made based on expressive conditions, including credentials exchanged among entities in order to establish enough trust to be granted access to a resource, while preserving the privacy of information released. In addition, policies can be used in scripting languages such as JSP in order to personalize dynamically generated content, based on locally stored information or requester information obtained through negotiations. Furthermore, using policies allows us to make use of many of the results in the area, including policy verification techniques and the use of our automatically generated natural language explanations describing e.g., the requirements to be satisfied before access to a resource is granted or why a previous attempt has been denied

Breast US as primary imaging modality for diagnosing gynecomastia

Aim. To assess the role of breast US in diagnosing and classifying gynecomastia as the primary imaging modality and to compare US findings and classification system with the mammographic ones. Patients and methods. 48 patients suspected of having gynecomastia underwent mammography and US. Two radiologists in consensus retrospectively evaluated mammograms and sonograms. Both US and mammographic images were evaluated categorizing gynecomastia into non-mass, nodular and flame shaped patterns. The two category assignations were compared in order to find any difference. The reference standard for both the classification systems was represented by the cytological examination in 18 out of 44 cases (41%) and the six-month US follow-up in the remaining cases. Results. The US examination revealed pseudo-gynecomastia in 4/48 (8%) and true gynecomastia in the remaining 44 (92%). Gynecomastia was bilateral in 25/44 cases (57%) and unilateral in the remaining 19 (43%). The cases of true gynecomastia included non mass shape in 26/44 cases (59%), nodular shape in 12 (27%) and flame shape in 6 (14%). The mammographic examination revealed the same results as compared with US findings. 18/44 (41%) patients affected by nodular or dendritic gynecomastia underwent cytological examination confirming the presence of glandular tissue and the benign nature of the clinical condition. Conclusions. US could be proposed as the primary imaging tool for diagnosing and classifying gynecomastia, avoiding unnecessary Xray examinations or invasive procedures in case of diffuse gynecomastia. In case of nodular or dendritic patterns, biopsy remains mandatory for a definitive diagnosis

Role of specimen US for predicting resection margin status in breast conserving therapy

Aim. To assess the diagnostic accuracy of specimen ultrasound (US) for predicting resection margin status in women undergoing breast conserving therapy for US-detected cancer, having the histological findings as the reference standard. Patients and methods. A total of 132 consecutive patients (age range, 34-87 years; mean, 51 years) underwent breast-conserving surgery for US-detected invasive breast cancer. All surgical specimens underwent US examination. The presence of lesion within the specimen and its distance from the specimen margins were assessed considering a threshold distance between the lesion and specimen margins of 10 mm. US findings were then compared with the pathological ones and specimen US. Sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic accuracy, positive (PPV) and negative predictive values (NPV) for predicting histological margin status were evaluated, having the histological findings as the reference standard. Results. The histological examination detected invasive ductal carcinoma in 96/132 (73%) cases, invasive lobular carcinoma in 32/132 (24%), mucinous carcinoma in 4/132 (3%). The pathological margin analysis revealed 96/132 (73%) negative margins and 36 (27%) close/positive margins. US examination detected all 132 breast lesions within the surgical specimens. 110 (83%) negative margins and 22 (17%) positive margins were found on US. Sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic accuracy, PPV and NPV of 44%, 94%, 80%, 73% and 82%, respectively, were found for specimen US. Conclusions. Specimen US represents a time and cost saving imaging tool for evaluating the presence of US detected-breast lesion within surgical specimen and for predicting the histological margin status