Frictionless Authentication Systems: Emerging Trends, Research Challenges and Opportunities

Authentication and authorization are critical security layers to protect a wide range of online systems, services and content. However, the increased prevalence of wearable and mobile devices, the expectations of a frictionless experience and the diverse user environments will challenge the way users are authenticated. Consumers demand secure and privacy-aware access from any device, whenever and wherever they are, without any obstacles. This paper reviews emerging trends and challenges with frictionless authentication systems and identifies opportunities for further research related to the enrollment of users, the usability of authentication schemes, as well as security and privacy trade-offs of mobile and wearable continuous authentication systems.Comment: published at the 11th International Conference on Emerging Security Information, Systems and Technologies (SECURWARE 2017

How do supranational regulators keep companies in line?: An analysis of the enforcement styles of EU agencies

National governments have increasingly transferred enforcement powers to EU agencies that monitor and penalize non-compliance by private actors. How do EU agencies apply enforcement competences in practice? Based on the Eurolegalism thesis, pressures for deeper integration have led to the emergence of a more adversarial enforcement style in Europe. Consequently, supranational regulators are expected to employ formal and coercive enforcement instruments. Conversely, studies of EU enforcement suggest that EU agencies may be reluctant to antagonize national governments by prosecuting private actors. In this study, we analyze the enforcement practices of supranational agencies with direct enforcement powers: the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA). We find that EU agencies apply a legalistic approach, but they vary in coerciveness of enforcement. Whereas EU agencies tend to apply more coercive measures against non-conform products, they are generally not adversarial toward non-compliant organizations.The politics and administration of institutional chang

Effectiveness of Serious Gaming During the Multidisciplinary Rehabilitation of Patients With Complex Chronic Pain or Fatigue: Natural Quasi-Experiment

Background: Current evidence for the effectiveness of specialist multidisciplinary programs for burdensome chronic pain and functional somatic syndromes drives the effort to improve approaches, strategies, and delivery modes. It remains unknown to what extent and in what respect serious gaming during the regular outpatient rehabilitation can contribute to health outcomes.Objective: The objectives of our study were to determine the effect of additional serious gaming on (1) physical and emotional functioning in general; (2) particular outcome domains; and (3) patient global impressions of change, general health, and functioning and to determine (4) the dependency of serious gaming effects on adherence.Methods: We conducted a naturalistic quasi-experiment using embedded qualitative methods. The intervention group patients received an additional guided (mindfulness-based) serious gaming intervention during weeks 9-12 of a 16-week rehabilitation program at 2 sites of a Dutch rehabilitation clinic. Simultaneously, 119 control group patients followed the same program without serious gaming at 2 similar sites of the same clinic. Data consisted of 10 semistructured patient interviews and routinely collected patient self-reported outcomes. First, multivariate linear mixed modeling was used to simultaneously estimate a group effect on the outcome change between weeks 8 and 16 in 4 primary outcomes: current pain intensity, fatigue, pain catastrophizing, and psychological distress. Second, similar univariate linear mixed models were used to estimate effects on particular (unstandardized) outcomes. Third, secondary outcomes (ie, global impression of change, general health, functioning, and treatment satisfaction) were compared between the groups using independent t tests. Finally, subgroups were established according to the levels of adherence using log data. Influences of observed confounding factors were considered throughout analyses.Results: Of 329 eligible patients, 156 intervention group and 119 control group patients (N= 275) with mostly chronic back pain and concomitant psychosocial problems participated in this study. Of all, 119 patients played >= 75% of the game. First, the standardized means across the 4 primary outcomes showed a significantly more favorable degree of change during the second part of the treatment for the intervention group than for the control group (beta=-0.119, SE= 0.046, P=. 009). Second, the intervention group showed a greater outcome change in depressive mood (b=-2.748, SE= 1.072, P=. 011) but not in "insufficiency" or concentration problems. Third, no significant group effects on secondary outcomes were found. Fourth, adherence was generally high and invariant.Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest a very small favorable average effect on relevant health outcomes of additional serious gaming during multidisciplinary rehabilitation. The indication that serious gaming could be a relatively time-efficient component warrants further research into if, when, how, and for which patients serious gaming could be cost-effective in treatment and why

An overview on the inconsistencies of approach in regulating the capital position of banks: Will the United Kingdom step out of line with Europe?

After the collapse of a number of banking institutions and bailouts of banks by governments, regulators have taken a different attitude and now appear keen to take regulation seriously when it comes to ensuring that banks have adequate capital and sufficient liquidity. Not only that, but in the United Kingdom, the Independent Commission on Banking Reform has made proposals with regard to the capital position of banks. This article, which is an overview, will look at matters from a UK perspective and at the proposals for reform. This article, after its introduction and summary, will look at a number of areas: first, the reforms made by Basel III; second, the regulation of Systemically Important Financial Institutions (Sifis) and the proposals for dealing with these; third, some matters in relation to lending that relate to capital and liquidity generally; fourth, increased stress testing of banks; fifth, derivatives and risk taking and the new proposed structure of regulation in the United Kingdom; sixth, the war of spin between regulators and banks; seventh, Shadow Banking; and eighth, The Independent Commission on Banking Reform and its proposals for reform. It will also be a theme that the various proposals lack consistency and that this could lead to regulatory arbitrage. It is already clear that there are inconsistencies between the various regulatory organisations, with proposals in the United Kingdom indicating that banks will be required to keep much higher levels of capital than those proposed by Basel and the European Community. The views of those who have pointed out inconsistencies between the United Kingdom and Basel/Europe have been highlighted

Carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios of urine and faeces as novel nutritional biomarkers of meat and fish intake

Purpose Meat and fish consumption are associated with changes in the risk of chronic diseases. Intake is mainly assessed using self-reporting, as no true quantitative nutritional biomarker is available. The measurement of plasma fatty acids, often used as an alternative, is expensive and time-consuming. As meat and fish differ in their stable isotope ratios, δ13C and δ15N have been proposed as biomarkers. However, they have never been investigated in controlled human dietary intervention studies. Objective In a short-term feeding study, we investigated the suitability of δ13C and δ15N in blood, urine and faeces as biomarkers of meat and fish intake. Methods The dietary intervention study (n = 14) followed a randomised cross-over design with three eight-day dietary periods (meat, fish and half-meat–half-fish). In addition, 4 participants completed a vegetarian control period. At the end of each period, 24-h urine, fasting venous blood and faeces were collected and their δ13C and δ15N analysed. Results There was a significant difference between diets in isotope ratios in faeces and urine samples, but not in blood samples (Kruskal–Wallis test, p < 0.0001). In pairwise comparisons, δ13C and δ15N were significantly higher in urine and faecal samples following a fish diet when compared with all other diets, and significantly lower following a vegetarian diet. There was no significant difference in isotope ratio between meat and half-meat–half-fish diets for blood, urine or faecal samples. Conclusions The results of this study show that urinary and faecal δ13C and δ15N are suitable candidate biomarkers for short-term meat and fish intake

PIVOT:Private and effective contact tracing

We propose, design, and evaluate PIVOT, a privacy-enhancing and effective contact tracing solution that aims to strike a balance between utility and privacy: one that does not collect sensitive information yet allowing effective tracing and notifying the close contacts of diagnosed users. PIVOT requires a considerably lower degree of trust in the entities involved compared to centralised alternatives while retaining the necessary utility. To protect users\u27 privacy, it uses local proximity tracing based on broadcasting and recording constantly changing anonymous public keys via short-range communication. These public keys are used to establish a shared secret key between two people in close contact. The three keys (i.e., the two public keys and the established shared key) are then used to generate two unique per-user-per-contact hashes: one for infection registration and one for exposure score query. These hashes are never revealed to the public. To improve utility, user exposure score computation is performed centrally, which provides health authorities with minimal, yet insightful and actionable data. Data minimisation is achieved by the use of per-user-per-contact hashes and by enforcing role separation: the health authority act as a mixing node, while the matching between reported and queried hashes is outsourced to a third entity, an independent matching service. This separation ensures that out-of-scope information, such as users\u27 social interactions, is hidden from the health authorities, whereas the matching service does not learn users\u27 sensitive information. To sustain our claims, we conduct a practical evaluation that encompasses anonymity guarantees and energy requirements

Association of longitudinal changes in patient-reported health status with return to work in the first 2 years after traumatic injury:A prospective cohort study in the Netherlands

OBJECTIVES: To determine the prognostic value of time driven changes in health status on return to work (RTW) in the first 2 years after traumatic injury. DESIGN: A prospective longitudinal cohort study. All patient-reported outcomes were measured at 1 week, 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months after injury. SETTING: Ten participating hospitals in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS: Employed adult clinical injury patients admitted to the hospital between August 2015 and November 2016 (N=1245 patients). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Data about (first) RTW were used from the patient-reported questionnaires (1=yes, 0=no). RTW was measured as the first time a patient started working after hospital admission. Time until RTW was calculated in weeks. Health status was measured with the EuroQol Five Dimensions-3 Levels (EQ5D) including a dimension to measure cognition. RESULTS: At 24 months, 88.5% (n=1102) of the patients had returned to work. The median time to RTW was 6.6 weeks (IQR: 2–13). Patients’ health status was found to be an independent prognostic factor for RTW: a 0.1-unit increase in EQ5D (scale 0–1) translated into RTW being four times more likely (95% CI 1.60 to 11.94). Patients who had moderate or severe problems (0=no problems, 1=moderate or severe problems) with mobility (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.84 to 0.98), anxiety/depression (HR 0.86, 95% CI 0.80 to 0.91), usual activities (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.83 to 0.98), self-care (HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.99) and cognition (HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.85 to 0.94) were significantly less likely to RTW compared with patients with no problems. CONCLUSION: Increased self-reported health status over time is associated with a higher likelihood of RTW, independent of baseline risk factors, such as injury severity or education. Knowledge on patient-reported outcomes can contribute to the development of tailored RTW treatments. Furthermore, patient-reported outcomes could be used as monitoring tool to guide postinjury care in the clinical setting and RTW process. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02508675; Results

Serious gaming during multidisciplinary rehabilitation for patients with complex chronic pain or fatigue complaints: study protocol for a controlled trial and process evaluation

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Measuring sustainable employability:psychometric properties of the capability set for work questionnaire

BACKGROUND: The capability set for work questionnaire (CSWQ) is being used to measure the new model of sustainable employability building on the capability approach. However, previous studies on the psychometric properties of the instrument are limited and cross-sectional. This two-way study aimed to (1) evaluate the convergent validity of the CSWQ with the theoretically related constructs person-job fit, strengths use, and opportunity to craft and (2) test the predictive and incremental validity of the questionnaire for the well-established work outcomes, including work ability, work engagement, job satisfaction, and task performance. METHODS: A representative sample of 303 Dutch workers, chosen with probably random sampling, were surveyed using a one-month follow-up, cross-lagged design via the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences panel. The convergent validity was assessed by exploring the strength of associations between the capability set for work questionnaire and the theoretically related constructs using Pearson’s correlations. The predictive and incremental validity was evaluated by performing a series of linear hierarchical regression analyses. RESULTS: We found evidence of the convergent validity of the capability set score by moderate correlations with person-job fit, strengths use, and opportunity to craft (r = 0.51–0.52). A series of multiple regression analyses showed that Time 1 capability set score and its constituents (i.e., importance, ability, and enablement) generally had predictive and incremental validity for work ability, work engagement, job satisfaction, and task performance measured at Time 2. However, the incremental power of the CSWQ over and above conceptually related constructs was modest. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the convergent, predictive, and incremental validity of the capability set for work questionnaire with not previously investigated work constructs. This provided further evidence to support its utility for assessing a worker’s sustainable employability for future research and practical interventions