An On-the-fly Provenance Tracking Mechanism for Stream Processing Systems

Applications that operate over streaming data withhigh-volume and real-time processing requirements are becomingincreasingly important. These applications process streamingdata in real-time and deliver instantaneous responses to supportprecise and on-time decisions. In such systems, traceability -the ability to verify and investigate the source of a particularoutput - in real-time is extremely important. This ability allowsraw streaming data to be checked and processing steps to beverified and validated in timely manner. Therefore, it is crucialthat stream systems have a mechanism for dynamically trackingprovenance - the process that produced result data - at executiontime, which we refer to as on-the-fly stream provenance tracking.In this paper, we propose a novel on-the-fly provenance trackingmechanism that enables provenance queries to be performeddynamically without requiring provenance assertions to be storedpersistently. We demonstrate how our provenance mechanismworks by means of an on-the-fly provenance tracking algorithm.The experimental evaluation shows that our provenance solutiondoes not have a significant effect on the normal processing ofstream systems given a 7% overhead. Moreover, our provenancesolution offers low-latency processing (0.3 ms per additionalcomponent) with reasonable memory consumption.<br/

Fathers’ perinatal mental health: Impacts, interventions and supports

Background. Fathers’ perinatal mental health problems have far reaching implications not only for themselves, but also for their partner, their couple relationship, and their children. The primary objective of this thesis by publication was to generate evidence to inform the development of policy and intervention efforts to promote fathers’ mental health in the perinatal period. The aims of the research were four-fold: first, to determine the extent to which fathers’ experiences of mental health problems impact parenting and their children; second, to undertake a systematic review into interventions targeting fathers’ perinatal mental health; third, to explore fathers’ support needs in the perinatal period; and finally, to investigate midwives’ perceptions and experiences of working with fathers. Method. A multi-method approach was adopted across four studies. The first study used data from a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of Australian children and their families (N = 3,741 fathers) and explored mechanisms that link fathers’ postnatal distress to later child outcomes. Second, a systematic review of existing research detailing interventions targeting expectant and new fathers’ mental health was conducted. Third, fathers’ perceived support needs to accessing mental health and parenting support in the perinatal period were explored through qualitative interviews with fathers (N = 20). Finally, midwives’ perceptions and experiences of engaging fathers in the perinatal period were surveyed via a national online survey (N = 106) and qualitative interviews (N = 13). Results. In Study 1 (Chapter 6), results indicated that fathers’ postnatal distress and low parenting self-efficacy (PSE) were associated with higher levels of fathers’ parenting hostility and lower levels of parenting consistency when children were aged 4-5 years. In turn, this was associated with children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties when aged 8-9 years. Additionally, fathers’ levels of parenting warmth when children were aged 4-5 years was associated with fathers’ postnatal PSE and children’s prosocial outcomes when aged 8-9 years. In Study 2 (Chapter 7), the systematic literature review of interventions identified 11 studies, only five of which demonstrated significant intervention effects. The review highlighted the paucity of literature on interventions targeting fathers’ perinatal mental health and identified specific design issues related to outcome measures, timing of content delivery, and the mode of intervention delivery across the studies. Study 3 (Chapter 8) described a wide range of fathers’ experiences related to seeking support and several subthemes were identified within each broad area of inquiry: 1) support accessed; 2) support needs; 3) barriers to support; 4) facilitators of support; and 5) timing of support. Finally, online survey results in Study 4 (Chapter 9) indicated that the midwives considered engaging fathers to be a part of their professional role and that father-specific training is needed to develop their knowledge and skills in this area. Analysis of the interview data led to the identification of factors specific to midwives, the external workplace, and fathers that can impact a midwife’s ability to engage men in their services. Conclusion. Findings from this thesis extend our theoretical understanding of issues related to fathers’ perinatal mental health in three key areas; intergenerational health, the role of fathers’ PSE, and models of men’s help-seeking behaviour. Practical implications include intervention and support strategies to promote fathers’ perinatal mental health, and building capacity in the service system so perinatal health professionals can engage, support, and be more inclusive of fathers. Recommendations for future research focusing on fathers’ perinatal mental health include the exploration of diverse father groups, longitudinal research designs, enhanced intervention design and evaluation, and expanded professional training resources

Telemedicine – Meaning, Challenges and Opportunities

Medical service is one of the crucial policies and decent medical service is required by the population in every country. There are three main obstacles which prevent people from obtaining proper medical cares and treatments. First, the deficiency of medical staffs especially physicians which occur even in the developed countries. Second, regarding an important demographic issue, an increase in the number of the elderly makes the medical services more demanding. Finally, geographical aspect also plays a major role in healthcare inequality. The population dwelling in rural or remote areas struggle from accessing proper medical services. Information and communication technologies have become an important infrastructure upon which several domains can build in order to achieve more effective solutions. Integrating such technologies into the medical discipline results in telemedicine which is currently available across the globe. This article describes telemedicine in three key aspects including current state, challenges and opportunities based upon existing studies and implementations

Telemedicine – Meaning, Challenges and Opportunities

Medical service is one of the crucial policies and decent medical service is required by the population in every country. There are three main obstacles which prevent people from obtaining proper medical cares and treatments. First, the deficiency of medical staffs especially physicians which occur even in the developed countries. Second, regarding an important demographic issue, an increase in the number of the elderly makes the medical services more demanding. Finally, geographical aspect also plays a major role in healthcare inequality. The population dwelling in rural or remote areas struggle from accessing proper medical services. Information and communication technologies have become an important infrastructure upon which several domains can build in order to achieve more effective solutions. Integrating such technologies into the medical discipline results in telemedicine which is currently available across the globe. This article describes telemedicine in three key aspects including current state, challenges and opportunities based upon existing studies and implementations

Tracing fine-grained provenance in stream processing systems using a reverse mapping method

Applications that require continuous processing of high-volume data streams have grown in prevalence and importance. These kinds of system often process streaming data in real-time or near real-time and provide instantaneous responses in order to support a precise and on time decision. In such systems it is difficult to know exactly how a particular result is generated. However, such information is extremely important for the validation and verification of stream processing results. Therefore, it is crucial that stream processing systems have a mechanism for tracking provenance - the information pertaining to the process that produced result data - at the level of individual stream elements which we refer to as fine-grained provenance tracking for streams. The traceability of stream processing systems allows for users to validate individual stream elements, to verify the computation that took place and to understand the chain of reasoning that was used in the production of a stream processing result. Several recent solutions to provenance tracking in stream processing systems mainly focus on coarse-grained stream provenance in which the level of granularity for capturing provenance information is not detailed enough to address our problem. This thesis proposes a novel fine-grained provenance solution for streams that exploits a reverse mapping method to precisely capture dependency relationships for every individual stream element. It is also designed to support a stream-specific provenance query mechanism, which performs provenance queries dynamically over streams of provenance assertions without requiring the assertions to be stored persistently. The dissertation makes four major contributions to the state of the art. First is a provenance model for streams that allows for the provenance of individual stream elements to be obtained. Second is a provenance query method which utilizes a reverse mapping method - stream ancestor functions - in order to obtain the provenance of a particular stream processing result. The third contribution is a stream-specific provenance query mechanism that enables provenance queries to be computed on-the-fly without requiring provenance assertions to be stored persistently. The fourth contribution is the performance characteristics of our stream provenance solution. It is shown that the storage overhead for provenance collection can be reduced significantly by using our storage reduction technique and the marginal cost of storage consumption is constant based on the number of input stream events. A 4% overhead for the persistent provenance approach and a 7% overhead for the stream-specific query approach are observed as the impact of provenance recording on system performance. In addition, our stream-specific query approach offers low latency processing (0.3 ms per additional component) with reasonable memory consumption