6 research outputs found
Uma arquitectura segura e colaborativa para registos de saúde electrónicos com suporte a mobilidade
Doutoramento em InformáticaDurante as ultimas décadas, os registos de saúde eletrónicos (EHR) têm
evoluído para se adaptar a novos requisitos. O cidadão tem-se envolvido
cada vez mais na prestação dos cuidados médicos, sendo mais pró ativo e
desejando potenciar a utilização do seu registo. A mobilidade do cidadão
trouxe mais desafios, a existência de dados dispersos, heterogeneidade de
sistemas e formatos e grande dificuldade de partilha e comunicação entre
os prestadores de serviços.
Para responder a estes requisitos, diversas soluções apareceram, maioritariamente
baseadas em acordos entre instituições, regiões e países. Estas abordagens
são usualmente assentes em cenários federativos muito complexos e
fora do controlo do paciente. Abordagens mais recentes, como os registos
pessoais de saúde (PHR), permitem o controlo do paciente, mas levantam
duvidas da integridade clinica da informação aos profissionais clínicos.
Neste cenário os dados saem de redes e sistemas controlados, aumentando
o risco de segurança da informação. Assim sendo, são necessárias novas
soluções que permitam uma colaboração confiável entre os diversos atores
e sistemas.
Esta tese apresenta uma solução que permite a colaboração aberta e segura
entre todos os atores envolvidos nos cuidados de saúde. Baseia-se numa
arquitetura orientada ao serviço, que lida com a informação clínica usando
o conceito de envelope fechado. Foi modelada recorrendo aos princípios
de funcionalidade e privilégios mínimos, com o propósito de fornecer proteção dos dados durante a transmissão, processamento e armazenamento.
O controlo de acesso _e estabelecido por políticas definidas pelo paciente.
Cartões de identificação eletrónicos, ou certificados similares são utilizados
para a autenticação, permitindo uma inscrição automática. Todos os
componentes requerem autenticação mútua e fazem uso de algoritmos de
cifragem para garantir a privacidade dos dados. Apresenta-se também um
modelo de ameaça para a arquitetura, por forma a analisar se as ameaças
possíveis foram mitigadas ou se são necessários mais refinamentos.
A solução proposta resolve o problema da mobilidade do paciente e a dispersão de dados, capacitando o cidadão a gerir e a colaborar na criação
e manutenção da sua informação de saúde. A arquitetura permite uma
colaboração aberta e segura, possibilitando que o paciente tenha registos
mais ricos, atualizados e permitindo o surgimento de novas formas de criar
e usar informação clínica ou complementar.Since their early adoption Electronic Health Records (EHR) have been evolving
to cope with increasing requirements from institutions, professionals
and, more recently, from patients. Citizens became more involved demanding
successively more control over their records and an active role on their
content. Mobility brought also new requirements, data become scattered
over heterogeneous systems and formats, with increasing di culties on data
sharing between distinct providers.
To cope with these challenges several solutions appeared, mostly based on
service level agreements between entities, regions and countries. They usually
required de ning complex federated scenarios and left the patient outside
the process. More recent approaches, such as personal health records
(PHR), enable patient control although raises clinical integrity doubts to
other actors, such as physicians. Also, information security risk increase as
data travels outside controlled networks and systems. To overcome this,
new solutions are needed to facilitate trustable collaboration between the
diverse actors and systems.
In this thesis we present a solution that enables a secure and open collaboration
between all healthcare actors. It is based on a service-oriented architecture
that deals with the clinical data using a closed envelope concept. The
architecture was modeled with minimal functionality and privileges bearing
in mind strong protection of data during transmission, processing and
storing. The access control is made through patient policies and authentication
uses electronic identi cation cards or similar certi cates, enabling
auto-enrollment. All the components require mutual authentication and
uses cyphering mechanisms to assure privacy. We also present a threat
model to verify, through our solution, if possible threats were mitigated or
if further re nement is needed.
The proposed solution solves the problem of patient mobility and data dispersion,
and empowers citizens to manage and collaborate in their personal
healthcare information. It also permits open and secure collaboration, enabling
the patient to have richer and up to date records that can foster new
ways to generate and use clinical or complementary information
Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research
Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4
While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge
of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In
the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of
Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus
crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced
environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian
Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by
2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status,
much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research
Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost
Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone
As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved