Seeing through the clouds: Managing data flow and compliance in cloud computing

As cloud computing becomes an increasingly dominant means of providing computing resources, the legal and regulatory issues associated with data in the cloud become more pronounced. These issues derive primarily from four areas: contract, data protection, law enforcement, and regulatory and common law protections for particularly sensitive domains such as health, finance, fiduciary relations, and intellectual property assets. From a technical perspective, these legal requirements all impose information management obligations on data sharing and transmission within cloud-hosted applications and services. They might restrict how, when, where, and by whom data may flow and be accessed. These issues must be managed not only between applications, but also through the entire, potentially global, cloud supply chain.Those of us from the Computer Laboratory are supported through the UK EPSRC (grant EP/K0l1510), and the Microsoft Cloud Computing Research Centre.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IEEE via http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MCC.2015.6

Effective information and the influence of an extension event on perceptions and adoption

Perceptions are known to play an important role in the innovation adoption decision. Once influential perceptions have been identified, there is the potential for information to influence adoption by changing these perceptions. In this paper, the influence of an extension workshop targeting grain growers’ perceptions known to be associated with the adoption of integrated weed management and herbicide resistance management has been measured using regression analysis. Consistent with a Bayesian learning framework, the greatest influence on grower perceptions and intended adoption behaviour was observed where information could be delivered with a high degree of certainty and validity.Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management,

Informal knowledge transfer in the period before formal health education programmes: case studies of mass media coverage of HIV and SIDS in England and Wales

Background: How advances in knowledge lead via behaviour change to better health is not well understood. Here we report two case studies: a rapid reduction in HIV transmission in homosexual men and a decline in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome ( SIDS) that took place in the period before the relevant national education programmes commenced, respectively, in 1986 and 1991. The role of newspapers in transferring knowledge relevant to reducing the risk of AIDS and SIDS is assessed. Methods: HIV. Searches were made of The Times (1981-1985), Gay News (1981-1984) and, for the key period of April to June 1983, of eight newspapers with the highest readership. Information on transmission route and educational messages were abstracted and analysed.SIDS Searches were made of The Times and the Guardian (1985-1991), The Sun ( selected periods only, 1988-1991) and selected nursing journals published in England and Wales. Information on sleeping position and educational messages were abstracted and analysed.Results: HIV Forty-five out of 50 articles identified in newspapers described homosexuals as an at risk group. Sexual transmission of AIDS was, however, covered poorly, with only 7 (14%) articles referring explicitly to sexual transmission. Only seven articles (14%) associated risk with promiscuity. None of the articles were specific about changes in behaviour that could be expected to reduce risk. Gay periodicals did not include specific advice on reducing the number of partners until early 1984.SIDS Out of 165 relevant articles in The Times and 84 in the Guardian, 7 were published before 1991 and associated risk with sleeping position. The reviewed nursing journals reflected a pervasive sense of uncertainty about the link between SIDS and sleeping position. Conclusion: Presumptively receptive audiences responded rapidly to new knowledge on how changes in personal behaviour might reduce risk, even though the 'signals' were not strong and were transmitted, at least partly, through informal and 'horizontal' channels. Advances in knowledge with the potential to prevent disease by behaviour change may thus yield substantial health benefits even without the mediation of formal education campaigns ('interventions'). Formal campaigns, when they came, did make important additional contributions, especially in the case of SIDS

Herbicide-Resistant Weed Seeds Contaminate Grain Sown in the Western Australian Grainbelt

Preventing the introduction of weeds into the farming system through sowing of clean seeds is an essential component of weed management. The weed seed contamination of cleaned grain and herbicide resistance levels of the recovered weed seeds were examined in a study conducted across 74 farms in the Western Australian grainbelt. Most farmers grew and conserved their own crop seed. The majority of cleaned samples had some level of seed contamination from 11 foreign weed and volunteer crop species, with an average of 62 seeds 10 kg−1 grain, substantially higher than the 28 seeds 10 kg−1 grain expected by farmers. The most common weed contaminants across all samples were rigid ryegrass, wild radish, brome, and wild oat.When categorized by crop type, rigid ryegrass was the most frequent contaminant of cereal crops (barley and wheat), however wild radish was the most frequent contaminant of lupin crops. Uncleaned crop seed samples had almost 25 times more contamination than cleaned crop seed. Herbicide resistance was highly prevalent within rigid ryegrass populations recovered from cleaned grain except for glyphosate, which controlled all populations tested. Some resistance was also found in wild radish and wild oat populations; however, brome was susceptible to fluazifop. This study has shown that farmers are unknowingly introducing weed seeds into their farming systems during crop seeding, many of which have herbicide resistance

Keypad mobile phones are associated with a significant increased risk of microbial contamination compared to touch screen phones

The use of mobile phones in the clinical environment by healthcare workers has become widespread. Despite evidence that these devices can harbour pathogenic micro-organisms there is little guidance on how to reduce contamination. Recently touchscreen phones with a single flat surface have been introduced. We hypothesise that bacterial contamination of phones used in hospitals will be lower on touchscreen devices compared to keypad devices. Sixty seven mobile phones belonging to health care workers were sampled. The median colony count for touchscreen phones and keypad devices was 0·09 colony forming units (cfu)/cm2 (interquartile range (IQR) 0.05–0·14) and 0·77 cfu/cm2 (IQR range 0·45–3.52) respectively. Colony counts were significantly higher on the keypad phones (Fisher’s exact test p<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed the type of phone (keypad vs. touch screen) was associated with increased colony counts (F-statistic 14.13: p<0.001). Overall, nine (13%) phones grew either meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus or vancomycin resistant enterococci. Eight (24%) keypad phones were contaminated with these organisms compared with one touch screen phone (3%). Our data indicate that touchscreen mobile phones are less contaminated than their keypad counterparts, and they are less likely to harbour pathogenic bacteria in the clinical setting

Bi-directional light transmission properties assessment for venetian blinds : Computer simulations compared to photogoniometer measurements

An accurate evaluation of daylight distribution through advanced fenestration systems (complex glazing, solar shading systems) requires the knowledge of their Bi-directional light Transmission Distribution Function (BTDF). An innovative equipment for the experimental assessment of these bi-directional functions has been developed, based on a digital imaging detection system. An extensive set of BTDF measurements was performed with this photogoniometer on venetian blinds presenting curved slats with a mirror coating on the upper side. In this paper, the measured data are compared with ray-tracing results achieved with a virtual copy of the device, that was constructed with a commercial ray-tracing software. The model of the blind was created by implementing the measured reflection properties of the slats coatings in the ray-tracing calculations. These comparisons represent an original and objective validation methodology for detailed bi-directional properties for a complex system; the good agreement between the two methods, yet presenting very different parameters and assessment methodologies, places reliance both on the digital-imaging detection system and calibration, and on the potentiality of a flexible calculation method combining ray-tracing simulations with simple components measurements