Secure exchange of electronic health records

Protecting the confidentiality of a patient\u27s information in a shared care environment could become a complex task. Correct identification of users, assigning of access permissions, and resolution of conflict rise as main points of interest in providing solutions for data exchange among health care providers. Traditional approaches such as Mandatory Access Control, Discretionary Access control and Role-Based Access Control policies do not always provide a suitable solution for health care settings, especially for shared care environments. The core of this contribution consists in the description of an approach which uses attribute-based encryption to protect the confidentiality of patients\u27 information during the exchange of electronic health records among healthcare providers. Attribute-based encryption allows the reinforcing of access policies and reduces the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive information; it also provides a set of functionalities which are described using a case study. Attribute-based encryption provides an answer to restrictions presented by traditional approaches and facilitate the reinforcing of existing security policies over the transmitted data

Effect of Oxygen Stoichiometry onMicrostructural andMagnetic Properties of FePt/TaO Bilayer Fabricated by Ion-Beam-Bombardment Deposition

The effect of TaO capping layer on microstructures and magnetic properties of FePt thin films via annealing was studied. The structuralordering of FePt fromface-centered cubic to face-centered tetragonal phases depends strongly on the oxygen contents in the cappingTaO layer. The role of the TaO layer is used to separate the FePt grains, as revealed by TEM. The annealed FePt/TaO (15%O /Ar)exhibited the largest out-of-plane coercivity ( kOe) amongst all samples, compared to that ( kOe) in the reference FePtlayer. At low oxygen content in FePt/TaO bilayers, the Ta atomsmay act as defects to obstruct the FePt ordering whereas at high oxygencontents, the excess oxygen atoms diffuse into the FePt layer and react with Fe to form iron oxides which give rise to the low coercivities,as characterized by the XPS depth profile and binding energy analysis