Privacy mediators:helping IoT cross the chasm

Unease over data privacy will retard consumer acceptance of IoT deployments. The primary source of discomfort is a lack of user control over raw data that is streamed directly from sensors to the cloud. This is a direct consequence of the over-centralization of today’s cloud-based IoT hub designs. We propose a solution that interposes a locally-controlled software component called a privacy mediator on every raw sensor stream. Each mediator is in the same administrative domain as the sensors whose data is being collected, and dynamically enforces the current privacy policies of the owners of the sensors or mobile users within the domain. This solution necessitates a logical point of presence for mediators within the administrative boundaries of each organization. Such points of presence are provided by cloudlets, which are small locally-administered data centers at the edge of the Internet that can support code mobility. The use of cloudlet-based mediators aligns well with natural personal and organizational boundaries of trust and responsibility

Young children’s food brand knowledge. Early development and associations with television viewing and parent’s diet

Brand knowledge is a prerequisite of children’s requests and choices for branded foods. We explored the development of young children’s brand knowledge of foods highly advertised on television – both healthy and less healthy. Participants were 172 children aged 3–5 years in diverse socio-economic settings, from two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland with different regulatory environments. Results indicated that food brand knowledge (i) did not differ across jurisdictions; (ii) increased significantly between 3 and 4 years; and (iii) children had significantly greater knowledge of unhealthy food brands, compared with similarly advertised healthy brands. In addition, (iv) children’s healthy food brand knowledge was not related to their television viewing, their mother’s education, or parent or child eating. However, (v) unhealthy brand knowledge was significantly related to all these factors, although only parent eating and children’s age were independent predictors. Findings indicate that effects of food marketing for un- healthy foods take place through routes other than television advertising alone, and are present before pre-schoolers develop the concept of healthy eating. Implications are that marketing restrictions of un- healthy foods should extend beyond television advertising; and that family-focused obesity prevention programmes should begin before children are 3 years of age

Cosmology from HI galaxy surveys with the SKA

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) has the potential to produce galaxy redshift surveys which will be competitive with other state of the art cosmological experiments in the next decade. In this chapter we summarise what capabilities the first and the second phases of the SKA will be able to achieve in its current state of design. We summarise the different cosmological experiments which are outlined in further detail in other chapters of this Science Book. The SKA will be able to produce competitive Baryonic Oscillation (BAOs) measurements in both its phases. The first phase of the SKA will provide similar measurements as optical and IR experiments with completely different systematic effects whereas the second phase being transformational in terms of its statistical power. The SKA will produce very accurate Redshift Space Distortions (RSD) measurements, being superior to other experiments at lower redshifts, due to the large number of galaxies. Cross correlations of the galaxy redshift data from the SKA with radio continuum surveys and optical surveys will provide extremely good calibration of photometric redshifts as well as extremely good bounds on modifications of gravity. Basing on a Principle Component Analysis (PCA) approach, we find that the SKA will be able to provide competitive constraints on dark energy and modified gravity models. Due to the large area covered the SKA it will be a transformational experiment in measuring physics from the largest scales such as non-Gaussian signals from $\textrm{f}_{\textrm{nl}}$. Finally, the SKA might produce the first real time measurement of the redshift drift. The SKA will be a transformational machine for cosmology as it grows from an early Phase 1 to its full power

Mobile gaming: Industry challenges and policy implications

Mobile games are a prime example of a successful mobile application and demonstrate the increasing range of platforms for the media and entertainment industries. Against this convergent background, this paper introduces the basic features of the mobile gaming market and its industrial ecosystem together with its main actors and activities. The focus of the paper lies in the challenges ahead for the evolution of mobile applications into a potentially dominant game platform and the possible disruptions along this road. The deep personal relationships between users and their mobile devices are considered to further explore the link between mobile games, players’ strategies and pending techno-economic developments. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of some policy options to assist with the development of this domain

App Law Within:Rights and Regulation in the Smartphone Age

This article assesses the regulation of smartphone ‘app stores’. At the outset, the significance of smartphones and apps to the debate on Internet regulation is considered, and places in the context of the adoption of smartphones and apps. The importance (commercially and as a study in governance and control) of the iOS App Store (Apple) is highlighted, as is the need to explore forms of regulation that are not linked with a violation of competition law. Section ‘Developer-focused issues’ deals with the relationship between Apple and app developers; three themes of Apple’s Guidelines are identified (content, development and payments), and the ways in which control can be challenged (through jailbreaking, ‘web apps’ and regulatory intervention) are scrutinized. Section ‘Citizen- and consumer-focused issues’ considers three ways in which apps are already regulated by law. The focus is on the protection of consumers (particularly through the UK system for ‘premium rate services’), but a discussion of user privacy and the regulation of video games and video-on-demand services in Europe is also included. Finally, in the section ‘Conclusion’, the tension between comparatively ‘open’ and ‘closed’ app stores is highlighted; the problems of applying general provisions to emerging formats are emphasized. It is concluded that the emerging status of non-carrier app stores as neither retailer nor platform means that it is not yet possible to identify the form of regulation that is in operation, but that some steps are available to legislators that could shift the balance between closed and open model

Price effects of a hospital merger: Heterogeneity across health insurers, hospital products, and hospital locations

In most studies on hospital merger effects, the unit of observation is the merged hospital, whereas the observed price is the weighted average across hospital products and across payers. However, little is known about whether price effects vary between hospital locations, products, and payers. We expand existing bargaining models to allow for heterogeneous price effects and use a difference-in-differences model in which price changes at the merging hospitals are compared with price changes at comparison hospitals. We find evidence of heterogeneous price effects across health insurers, hospital products and hospital locations. These findings have implications for ex ante merger scrutiny