Strengthening Data Security: an Holistic Approach

In the light of heightened concern around data security, this paper highlights some of the measures that can be used to develop and strengthen security in data archiving. The paper includes discussion of the different approaches that can be taken towards the construction of firm and resilient data and information security policies within the social science data archiving communities. While international standards can provide theoretical guidelines for the construction of such a policy, procedures need to be informed by more practical considerations. Attention is drawn to the necessity of following a holistic approach to data security, which includes the education of data creators in the reduction of disclosure risk, the integration of robust and appropriate data processing, handling and management procedures, the value of emerging technological solutions, the training of data users in data security, and the importance of management control, as well as the need to be informed by emerging government security and digital preservation standards

Keeping Research Data Safe 2: Final Report

The first Keeping Research Data Safe study funded by JISC made a major contribution to understanding of long-term preservation costs for research data by developing a cost model and indentifying cost variables for preserving research data in UK universities (Beagrie et al, 2008). However it was completed over a very constrained timescale of four months with little opportunity to follow up other major issues or sources of preservation cost information it identified. It noted that digital preservation costs are notoriously difficult to address in part because of the absence of good case studies and longitudinal information for digital preservation costs or cost variables. In January 2009 JISC issued an ITT for a study on the identification of long-lived digital datasets for the purposes of cost analysis. The aim of this work was to provide a larger body of material and evidence against which existing and future data preservation cost modelling exercises could be tested and validated. The proposal for the KRDS2 study was submitted in response by a consortium consisting of 4 partners involved in the original Keeping Research Data Safe study (Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, Charles Beagrie Ltd, and OCLC Research) and 4 new partners with significant data collections and interests in preservation costs (Archaeology Data Service, University of London Computer Centre, University of Oxford, and the UK Data Archive). A range of supplementary materials in support of this main report have been made available on the KRDS2 project website at http://www.beagrie.com/jisc.php. That website will be maintained and continuously updated with future work as a resource for KRDS users

A review of the perturbation theory as applied to the determination of geopotential

Satellite theory to determine geopotential from orbital motion of artificial earth satellite

Interview

Michael Woollard from University College London in the UK talks us about his submission “Synthetic aperture radar automatic target classification processing concept”, the challenges he had to overcome and how he thinks the field will develop in the future, page 1301

CCR5 and the Blood Brain Barrier During HIV-1 Infection and Cell-Cell Communications

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) infection often results in blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction and central nervous system (CNS) impairment. Since most viral strains that cross the BBB and enter the CNS are macrophage-tropic and use the C-C chemokine receptor type-5 (CCR5) to enter and infect target cells, we hypothesized that CCR5 plays a major role in monocytes-endothelial interactions and HIV-induced BBB dysfunction. Because the cytoskeleton is responsible for cellular morphology and motility, we further hypothesized that HIV-induced monocyte-endothelial interactions and transendothelial migration involve cytoskeletal changes and that CCR5 blockers would also affect these changes. To this end we used two small molecule CCR5 antagonists, TAK-779 and maraviroc (MVR), to evaluate the role of CCR5 on cytoskeletal changes in HIV-1-infected monocytes following monocyte-endothelial interactions. We found that HIV-1 infection of monocytes resulted in the upregulation of cytoskeletal-associated proteins following monocyte-endothelial interactions. Proteins identified included Rac1, ERK1/2, and cortactin. Rac1 phosphorylation at serine 71 (s71) was upregulated in our in vitro studies and this upregulation was validated in analyses of ex-vivo brain tissues of HIV-1-infected humans. We next examined the effect of MVR treatment on HIV-1-induced BBB injury and CNS infection in vivo using humanized mice. We hypothesized that MVR treatment could diminish HIV-induced BBB injury and CNS infection. HIV-1 infection resulted in decreased expression of the tight junction proteins claudin-5 and ZO-2 in the animals’ brain blood vessels and MVR treatment partially attenuated these changes. Furthermore, our data showed that MVR enters the CNS and MVR treatment reduced viral loads in brain tissues. In conclusion, this study suggests that blocking CCR5 can diminish HIV-1-induced cytoskeletal changes, diminish BBB injury and CNS infection

Investigating the effects of bistatic SAR phenomenology on feature extraction

Interest in bistatic radar has fluctuated since its first demonstration. Modern multistatic and MIMO radar systems have prompted a resurgence in the field, particularly where imaging radar and automatic target recognition are concerned. The lack of openly-available bistatic imagery and corresponding analysis of the unique artefacts which occur within it is a significant barrier to developing automatic target recognition methods for such systems. This paper looks to address these issues by presenting an appropriate simulation methodology for obtaining bistatic synthetic aperture radar imagery of ground vehicle targets and investigating the features that occur within this imagery. In this paper, a number of effects unique to the bistatic case are presented, and the performance degradation of a classifier at several bistatic angles is empirically demonstrated. A version of the final database will be publicly released to promote wider research into this challenge

“Radar-A-Thon” Concept Paper: RAPHAEL COTS Radar

This paper presents a low-cost X-band FMCW radar system suitable for short range sensing in an indoor environment. The design is based on a PLL-VCO architecture, and is realised as a direct conversion receiver. It can achieve range resolutions of 30 cm or 10 cm in standard and ultra- wideband modes respectively. The system is capable of producing programmable linear sweeps over wide bandwidths, and is compliant with FCC Part 15

Simulation of a finishing operation : milling of a turbine blade and influence of damping

Milling is used to create very complex geometries and thin parts, such as turbine blades. Irreversible geometric defects may appear during finishing operations when a high surface quality is expected. Relative vibrations between the tool and the workpiece must be as small as possible, while tool/workpiece interactions can be highly non-linear. A general virtual machining approach is presented and illustrated. It takes into account the relative motion and vibrations of the tool and the workpiece. Both deformations of the tool and the workpiece are taken into account. This allows predictive simulations in the time domain. As an example the effect of damping on the behavior during machining of one of the 56 blades of a turbine disk is analysed in order to illustrate the approach potential

A study of the degree to which satellite- derived gravitational data can be related to the anomalous surface gravity field and other anomalous geophysical parameters Final report

Satellite-derived gravitational data related to anomalous surface gravity field and other geophysical parameters of Solomon Islands are