Obligations of trust for privacy and confidentiality in distributed transactions

Purpose – This paper aims to describe a bilateral symmetric approach to authorization, privacy protection and obligation enforcement in distributed transactions. The authors introduce the concept of the obligation of trust (OoT) protocol as a privacy assurance and authorization mechanism that is built upon the XACML standard. The OoT allows two communicating parties to dynamically exchange their privacy and authorization requirements and capabilities, which the authors term a notification of obligation (NoB), as well as their commitments to fulfilling each other's requirements, which the authors term signed acceptance of obligations (SAO). The authors seek to describe some applicability of these concepts and to show how they can be integrated into distributed authorization systems for stricter privacy and confidentiality control. Design/methodology/approach – Existing access control and privacy protection systems are typically unilateral and provider-centric, in that the enterprise service provider assigns the access rights, makes the access control decisions, and determines the privacy policy. There is no negotiation between the client and the service provider about which access control or privacy policy to use. The authors adopt a symmetric, more user-centric approach to privacy protection and authorization, which treats the client and service provider as peers, in which both can stipulate their requirements and capabilities, and hence negotiate terms which are equally acceptable to both parties. Findings – The authors demonstrate how the obligation of trust protocol can be used in a number of different scenarios to improve upon the mechanisms that are currently available today. Practical implications – This approach will serve to increase trust in distributed transactions since each communicating party receives a difficult to repudiate digitally signed acceptance of obligations, in a standard language (XACML), which can be automatically enforced by their respective computing machinery. Originality/value – The paper adds to current research in trust negotiation, privacy protection and authorization by combining all three together into one set of standardized protocols. Furthermore, by providing hard to repudiate signed acceptance of obligations messages, this strengthens the legal case of the injured party should a dispute arise

Quantum-based Mechanical Force Realization in Pico-Newton Range

We propose mechanical force realization based on flux quantization in the pico-Newton range. By controlling the number of flux quantum in a superconducting annulus, a force can be created as integer multiples of a constant step. For a 50 nm-thick Nb annulus with the inner and outer radii of 5 $\mu$m and 10 $\mu$m, respectively, and the field gradient of 10 T/m the force step is estimated to be 184 fN. The stability against thermal fluctuations is also addressed.Comment: 5 pages; 4 figure

The Negative Impact of Mobile Devices on Niche Product Consumption

Internet based information technology has provided the paradigm shift from Pareto principle to long tail phenomenon. However, the advent of small size mobile devices with higher search costs raises a negative question on this paradigm shift. The aim of this study is investigating the negative impact of mobile devices on niche product consumption. We collect 10 million user-device level transaction data with user profiles and content characteristics from a nation-wide e-book company in East Asia. We analyze the large size data with Pareto curve estimation and econometric modeling. As key findings, we found that smart phone users’ product sales are more concentrated than those of users with PCs or smart pads. Our empirical results support that mobile commerce markets do not follow long tail phenomenon, but follow “Pareto Principle” in terms of sales diversity because smart phone users have less willingness to purchase unpopular products than smart pad users

THE DOMAIN DECOMPOSITION METHOD FOR MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS IN TIME DOMAIN SIMULATIONS WITH DISPERSIVE METALLIC MEDIA

The domain decomposition method based on overlapping grids is developed to solve the two-dimensional Maxwell equations in the time domain. The finite difference schemes for rectangular and polar coordinate systems are presented. Since interpolation plays a crucial role in our method, the Newton and the Fourier interpolation methods are surveyed in detail. The computational studies of the electromagnetic wave propagation in free space and the back-scattering by a perfect electric conducting object of a circular shape are performed to test the accuracy, the convergence, and the efficiency of our method. Moreover, we give a methodology to model dispersive media in time domain simulations by introducing Drude conductivity in the constitutive equations. The problem of light scattering by metallic nanoparticles is solved, and its results show that our algorithm is efficient and reliable in capturing the small scale phenomena.open