Towards business integration as a service 2.0 (BIaaS 2.0)

Cloud Computing Business Framework (CCBF) is a framework for designing and implementation of Could Computing solutions. This proposal focuses on how CCBF can help to address linkage in Cloud Computing implementations. This leads to the development of Business Integration as a Service 1.0 (BIaaS 1.0) allowing different services, roles and functionalities to work together in a linkage-oriented framework where the outcome of one service can be input to another, without the need to translate between domains or languages. BIaaS 2.0 aims to allow automation, enhanced security, advanced risk modelling and improved collaboration between processes in BIaaS 1.0. The benefits from adopting BIaaS 1.0 and developing BIaaS 2.0 are illustrated using a case study from the University of Southampton and several collaborators including IBM US. BIaaS 2.0 can work with mainstream technologies such as scientific workflows, and the proposal and demonstration of BIaaS 2.0 will be aimed to certainly benefit industry and academia. © 2011 IEEE

The second international workshop on enterprise security

Welcome to our second international workshop on Enterprise Security as part of CloudCom 2015, Vancouver, Canada, November 30-December 3, 2015. The first international workshop held in Singapore has been a major success since then we have achieved greater team activities, research, and international collaborations as the major and significant outcome of our first workshop on this topic. Enterprise Security involves all business, products, governments, organization, and their contractors. This also includes research areas of information security, software security, computer security, cloud security, IoT security, data and big data security. This workshop provides a significant contribution from experts on some of the following key research areas:* Incident response Systems Security - This involves many organisations are outsourcing computer operations to third parties, and the next logical step is to outsource management of computer security incidents as well.* Cloud Security Assurance Model - Defining proper measures for evaluating the effectiveness of an assurance model, which we have developed to ensure cloud security, is vital to ensure the successful implementation and continued running of the model. We need to understand that with security being such an essential component of business processes, responsibility must lie with the board.* Cloud Security - The development of cloud computing and the vast use of its services poses significant security and privacy concerns to the people and the organizations relying on these services. Diversification and obfuscation approaches are of the most promising proactive techniques that protect computers from harmful malware, by preventing them to take advantage of the security vulnerabilities. Mission critical applications are limited in the cloud as it has various security issues. As the data size are being increased gradually and the difficulty in storing, retrieving and managing data makes the application to move into cloud.* Cloud Forensics & Cryptanalysis and Enhancement - Password based authentication has been used extensively as a one of the most appropriate authentication techniques.* Validating technology and BI Techniques – This is useful for organizations to understand their status with return and risk. They can evaluate their security policies and technologies regularly.* Risk Analysis and Big Data – This is increasingly important for organizations since they deal with growing amount of data, dependency and complexity. Risk analysis can be applied to many areas related or outside cloud computing.We are pleased to receive 24 papers from researchers of 12 different countries. After the vigorous review process and careful considerations, 11 papers have been selected, with 5 full papers and 6 short papers. We have offered two prize awards. One award is to award the best paper in the information system category. The other award is to award the best paper in the computational category. Each winner can be invited to International Journal of Information Management (IJIM) and Future Generation Computer Systems (FGCS). Another good news we have is that extended version of conference papers and other security/risk researchers can contribute to our Springer book scheduled to call for papers after our workshop. We are honoured to have Dr. Konstantin Beznosov to be our keynote speaker.Enterprise Security has been a popular topic since it includes cyber security, risk management, information security, Cloud and Forensic security, risk analysis and Big Data. It is an area that can make theory into practice and allow any organizations that adopt our recommendations to enjoy the benefits of enforced Enterprise Security. The outputs of our workshop can provide organizations with several useful recommendations, proofs-of-concepts and demonstrations to improve current security and risk practices.We hope the second international workshop will foster collaborations of projects, research publications and funding opportunities at the international setting in Vancouver, Canada.Workshop Organizing Committee would like to thank CloudCom organizers for their fullest support

Statistical comparison of InSAR tropospheric correction techniques

Correcting for tropospheric delays is one of the largest challenges facing the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) community. Spatial and temporal variations in temperature, pressure, and relative humidity create tropospheric signals in InSAR data, masking smaller surface displacements due to tectonic or volcanic deformation. Correction methods using weather model data, GNSS and/or spectrometer data have been applied in the past, but are often limited by the spatial and temporal resolution of the auxiliary data. Alternatively a correction can be estimated from the interferometric phase by assuming a linear or a power-law relationship between the phase and topography. Typically the challenge lies in separating deformation from tropospheric phase signals. In this study we performed a statistical comparison of the state-of-the-art tropospheric corrections estimated from the MERIS and MODIS spectrometers, a low and high spatial-resolution weather model (ERA-I and WRF), and both the conventional linear and new power-law empirical methods. Our test-regions include Southern Mexico, Italy, and El Hierro. We find spectrometers give the largest reduction in tropospheric signal, but are limited to cloud-free and daylight acquisitions. We find a ~ 10–20% RMSE increase with increasing cloud cover consistent across methods. None of the other tropospheric correction methods consistently reduced tropospheric signals over different regions and times. We have released a new software package called TRAIN (Toolbox for Reducing Atmospheric InSAR Noise), which includes all these state-of-the-art correction methods. We recommend future developments should aim towards combining the different correction methods in an optimal manner

Editorial for FGCS special issue: Big Data in the cloud

Research associated with Big Data in the Cloud will be important topic over the next few years. The topic includes work on demonstrating architectures, applications, services, experiments and simulations in the Cloud to support the cases related to adoption of Big Data. A common approach to Big Data in the Cloud to allow better access, performance and efficiency when analysing and understanding the data is to deliver Everything as a Service. Organisations adopting Big Data this way find the boundaries between private clouds, public clouds and Internet of Things (IoT) can be very thin. Volume, variety, velocity, veracity and value are the major factors in Big Data systems but there are other challenges to be resolved. The papers of this special issue address a variety of issues and concerns in Big Data, including: searching and processing Big Data, implementing and modelling event and workflow systems, visualisation modelling and simulation and aspects of social media

Comparative analysis of enzymatically produced novel linear DNA constructs with plasmids for use as DNA vaccines

The use of DNA to deliver vaccine antigens offers many advantages, including ease of manufacture and cost. However, most DNA vaccines are plasmids and must be grown in bacterial culture, necessitating elements which are either unnecessary for effective gene delivery (e.g. bacterial origins of replication) or undesirable (e.g. antibiotic resistance genes). Removing these elements may improve the safety profile of DNA for the delivery of vaccines. Here we describe a novel, double-stranded, linear DNA construct produced by an enzymatic process that solely encodes an antigen expression cassette, comprising antigen, promoter, polyA tail and telomeric ends. We compared these constructs (called ‘Doggybones’ because of their shape) with conventional plasmid DNA. Using luciferase-expressing constructs, we demonstrated that expression levels were equivalent between Doggybones and plasmids both in vitro and in vivo. When mice were immunized with DNA constructs expressing the HIV envelope protein gp140, equivalent humoral and cellular responses were induced. Immunizations with either construct type expressing haemagluttinin were protective against H1N1 influenza challenge. This is the first example of an effective DNA vaccine which can be produced on a large scale by enzymatic processes

Oscillatory, Computational, and Behavioral Evidence for Impaired GABAergic Inhibition in Schizophrenia

The dysconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia (SZ) proposes that psychosis is best understood in terms of aberrant connectivity. Specifically, it suggests that dysconnectivity arises through aberrant synaptic modulation associated with deficits in GABAergic inhibition, excitation-inhibition balance and disturbances of high-frequency oscillations. Using a computational model combined with a graded-difficulty visual orientation discrimination paradigm, we demonstrate that, in SZ, perceptual performance is determined by the balance of excitation-inhibition in superficial cortical layers. Twenty-eight individuals with a DSM-IV diagnosis of SZ, and 30 age- and gender-matched healthy controls participated in a psychophysics orientation discrimination task, a visual grating magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording, and a magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) scan for GABA. Using a neurophysiologically informed model, we quantified group differences in GABA, gamma measures, and the predictive validity of model parameters for orientation discrimination in the SZ group. MEG visual gamma frequency was reduced in SZ, with lower peak frequency associated with more severe negative symptoms. Orientation discrimination performance was impaired in SZ. Dynamic causal modeling of the MEG data showed that local synaptic connections were reduced in SZ and local inhibition correlated negatively with the severity of negative symptoms. The effective connectivity between inhibitory interneurons and superficial pyramidal cells predicted orientation discrimination performance within the SZ group; consistent with graded, behaviorally relevant, disease-related changes in local GABAergic connections. Occipital GABA levels were significantly reduced in SZ but did not predict behavioral performance or oscillatory measures. These findings endorse the importance, and behavioral relevance, of GABAergic synaptic disconnection in schizophrenia that underwrites excitation-inhibition balance

The Relationship between Asthma and Depression in Primary Care Patients: A Historical Cohort and Nested Case Control Study

Asthma and depression are common health problems in primary care. Evidence of a relationship between asthma and depression is conflicting. Objectives: to determine 1. The incidence rate and incidence rate ratio of depression in primary care patients with asthma compared to those without asthma, and 2. The standardized mortality ratio of depressed compared to non-depressed patients with asthma.A historical cohort and nested case control study using data derived from the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database. Participants: 11,275 incident cases of asthma recorded between 1/1/95 and 31/12/96 age, sex and practice matched with non-cases from the database (ratio 1∶1) and followed up through the database for 10 years. 1,660 cases were matched by date of asthma diagnosis with 1,660 controls. Main outcome measures: number of cases diagnosed with depression, the number of deaths over the study period.The rate of depression in patients with asthma was 22.4/1,000 person years and without asthma 13.8 /1,000 person years. The incident rate ratio (adjusted for age, sex, practice, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, smoking) was 1.59 (95% CI 1.48–1.71). The increased rate of depression was not associated with asthma severity or oral corticosteroid use. It was associated with the number of consultations (odds ratio per visit 1.09; 95% CI 1.07–1.11). The age and sex adjusted standardized mortality ratio for depressed patients with asthma was 1.87 (95% CI: 1.54–2.27).Asthma is associated with depression. This was not related to asthma severity or oral corticosteroid use but was related to service use. This suggests that a diagnosis of depression is related to health seeking behavior in patients with asthma. There is an increased mortality rate in depressed patients with asthma. The cause of this needs further exploration. Consideration should be given to case-finding for depression in this population

Neutron Scattering and Its Application to Strongly Correlated Systems

Neutron scattering is a powerful probe of strongly correlated systems. It can directly detect common phenomena such as magnetic order, and can be used to determine the coupling between magnetic moments through measurements of the spin-wave dispersions. In the absence of magnetic order, one can detect diffuse scattering and dynamic correlations. Neutrons are also sensitive to the arrangement of atoms in a solid (crystal structure) and lattice dynamics (phonons). In this chapter, we provide an introduction to neutrons and neutron sources. The neutron scattering cross section is described and formulas are given for nuclear diffraction, phonon scattering, magnetic diffraction, and magnon scattering. As an experimental example, we describe measurements of antiferromagnetic order, spin dynamics, and their evolution in the La(2-x)Ba(x)CuO(4) family of high-temperature superconductors.Comment: 31 pages, chapter for "Strongly Correlated Systems: Experimental Techniques", edited by A. Avella and F. Mancin