PaaSword: A Holistic Data Privacy and Security by Design Framework for Cloud Services

Enterprises increasingly recognize the compelling economic and operational benefits from virtualizing and pooling IT resources in the cloud. Nevertheless, the significant and valuable transformation of organizations that adopt cloud computing is accompanied by a number of security threats that should be considered. In this position paper, we outline significant security challenges presented when migrating to a cloud environment and propose PaaSword - a novel holistic framework that aspires to alleviate these challenges. Specifically, this proposed framework involves a context-aware security model, the necessary policies enforcement mechanism along with a physical distribution, encryption and query middleware

Agent-based interoperability for e-government

The provision of valuable e-government services depends upon the capacity to integrate the disperse provision of services by the public administration and thus upon the availability of interoperability platforms. These platforms are commonly built according to the principles of service oriented architectures, which raise the question of how to dynamically orchestrate services while preserving information security. Recently, it was presented an e-government interoperability model that preserves privacy during the dynamic orchestration of services. In this paper we present a prototype that implements that model using software agents. The model and the prototype are briefly described; an illustrative use case is presented; and the advantages of using software agents to implement the model are discussed. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013

Brokerage for Quality Assurance and Optimisation of Cloud Services: An Analysis of Key Requirements

As the number of cloud service providers grows and the requirements of cloud service consumers become more complex, the latter will come to depend more and more on the intermediation services of cloud service brokers. Continuous quality assurance and optimisation of services is becoming a mission-critical objective that many consumers will find difficult to address without help from cloud service intermediaries. The Broker@Cloud project envisages a software framework that will make it easier for cloud service intermediaries to address this need, and this paper provides an analysis of key requirements for this framework. We discuss the methodology that we followed to capture these requirements, which involved defining a conceptual service lifecycle model, carrying out a series of Design Thinking workshops, and formalising requirements based on an agile requirements information model. Then, we present the key requirements identified through this process in the form of summarised results

ATF4 couples MYC-dependent translational activity to bioenergetic demands during tumour progression.

The c-Myc oncogene drives malignant progression and induces robust anabolic and proliferative programmes leading to intrinsic stress. The mechanisms enabling adaptation to MYC-induced stress are not fully understood. Here we reveal an essential role for activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) in survival following MYC activation. MYC upregulates ATF4 by activating general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2) kinase through uncharged transfer RNAs. Subsequently, ATF4 co-occupies promoter regions of over 30 MYC-target genes, primarily those regulating amino acid and protein synthesis, including eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E-binding protein 1 (4E-BP1), a negative regulator of translation. 4E-BP1 relieves MYC-induced proteotoxic stress and is essential to balance protein synthesis. 4E-BP1 activity is negatively regulated by mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1)-dependent phosphorylation and inhibition of mTORC1 signalling rescues ATF4-deficient cells from MYC-induced endoplasmic reticulum stress. Acute deletion of ATF4 significantly delays MYC-driven tumour progression and increases survival in mouse models. Our results establish ATF4 as a cellular rheostat of MYC activity, which ensures that enhanced translation rates are compatible with survival and tumour progression

PaaSword: A Holistic Data Privacy and Security by Design Framework for Cloud Services

Enterprises increasingly recognize the compelling economic and operational benefits from virtualizing and pooling IT resources in the cloud. Nevertheless, the significant and valuable transformation of organizations that adopt cloud computing is accompanied by a number of security threats that should be considered. In this paper, we outline significant security challenges presented when migrating to a cloud environment and propose PaaSword - a novel holistic framework that aspires to alleviate these challenges. Specifically, the proposed framework involves a context aware security model, the necessary policies enforcement mechanism along with a physical distribution, encryption and query middleware