caGrid-Enabled caBIGTM Silver Level Compatible Head and Neck Cancer Tissue Database System

There are huge amounts of biomedical data generated by research labs in each cancer institution. The data are stored in various formats and accessed through numerous interfaces. It is very difficult to exchange and integrate the data among different cancer institutions, even among different research labs within the same institution, in order to discover useful biomedical knowledge for the healthcare community. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a caGrid-enabled caBIGTM silver level compatible head and neck cancer tissue database system. The system is implemented using a set of open source software and tools developed by the NCI, such as the caCORE SDK and caGrid. The head and neck cancer tissue database system has four interfaces: Web-based, Java API, XML utility, and Web service. The system has been shown to provide robust and programmatically accessible biomedical information services that syntactically and semantically interoperate with other resources

CaGrid Workflow Toolkit: A taverna based workflow tool for cancer grid

SOFTWAR

Improving Normal Tissue Complication Probability Models: The Need to Adopt a “Data-Pooling” Culture

Clinical studies of the dependence of normal tissue response on dose-volume factors are often confusingly inconsistent, as the QUANTEC reviews demonstrate. A key opportunity to accelerate progress is to begin storing high-quality datasets in repositories. Using available technology, multiple repositories could be conveniently queried, without divulging protected health information, to identify relevant sources of data for further analysis. After obtaining institutional approvals, data could then be pooled, greatly enhancing the capability to construct predictive models that are more widely applicable and better powered to accurately identify key predictive factors (whether dosimetric, image-based, clinical, socioeconomic, or biological). Data pooling has already been carried out effectively in a few normal tissue complication probability studies and should become a common strategy

Policy enforcement in cloud computing

Cloud Computing is an emerging technology, providing attractive way of hosting and delivering services over the Internet. Many organizations and individuals are utilizing Cloud services to share information and collaborate with partners. However, Cloud provides abstraction over the underlying physical infrastructure to the customers, that raises information security concerns, while storing data in a virtualized environment without having physical access to it. Additionally, certain standards have been issued to provide interoperability between users and various distributed systems(including Cloud infrastructures), in a standardized way. However, implementation and interoperability issues still exist and introduce new challenges. This thesis explores the feasibility of securing data in a cloud context, using existing standards and specifications, while retaining the benefits of the Cloud. The thesis provides a view on increasing security concerns of moving to the cloud and sharing data over it. First, we define security and privacy requirements for the data stored in the Cloud. Based on these requirements, we propose the requirements for an access control system in the Cloud. Furthermore, we evaluate the existing work in the area of currently available access control systems and mechanisms for secure data sharing over the Cloud, mostly focusing on policy enforcement and access control characteristics. Moreover, we determine existing mechanisms and standards to implement secure data sharing and collaborative systems over the Cloud. We propose an architecture supporting secure data sharing over the untrusted Cloud environment, based on our findings. The architecture ensures policy based access control inside and outside Cloud, while allowing the benefits of Cloud Computing to be utilized. We discuss the components involved in the architecture and their design considerations. To validate the proposed architecture, we construct the proof of concept prototype. We present a novel approach for implementing policy based access control, by achieving interoperability between existing standards and addressing certain issues, while constructing the system prototype. Furthermore, we deploy our solution in the Cloud and perform the performance tests to evaluate the performance of the system. Finally, we perform a case study by utilizing our system in a real-life scenario. To do this we slightly tailor our solution to meet specific needs. Overall, this thesis provides a solid foundation for the policy enforcement and access control mechanisms in the Cloud-based systems and motivates further work within this field. Cloud Computing is an emerging technology, providing attractive way of hosting and delivering services over the Internet. Many organizations and individuals are utilizing Cloud services to share information and collaborate with partners. However, Cloud provides abstraction over the underlying physical infrastructure to the customers, that raises information security concerns, while storing data in a virtualized environment without having physical access to it. Additionally, certain standards have been issued to provide interoperability between users and various distributed systems(including Cloud infrastructures), in a standardized way. However, implementation and interoperability issues still exist and introduce new challenges. This thesis explores the feasibility of securing data in a cloud context, using existing standards and specifications, while retaining the benefits of the Cloud. The thesis provides a view on increasing security concerns of moving to the cloud and sharing data over it. First, we define security and privacy requirements for the data stored in the Cloud. Based on these requirements, we propose the requirements for an access control system in the Cloud. Furthermore, we evaluate the existing work in the area of currently available access control systems and mechanisms for secure data sharing over the Cloud, mostly focusing on policy enforcement and access control characteristics. Moreover, we determine existing mechanisms and standards to implement secure data sharing and collaborative systems over the Cloud. We propose an architecture supporting secure data sharing over the untrusted Cloud environment, based on our findings. The architecture ensures policy based access control inside and outside Cloud, while allowing the benefits of Cloud Computing to be utilized. We discuss the components involved in the architecture and their design considerations. To validate the proposed architecture, we construct the proof of concept prototype. We present a novel approach for implementing policy based access control, by achieving interoperability between existing standards and addressing certain issues, while constructing the system prototype. Furthermore, we deploy our solution in the Cloud and perform the performance tests to evaluate the performance of the system. Finally, we perform a case study by utilizing our system in a real-life scenario. To do this we slightly tailor our solution to meet specific needs. Overall, this thesis provides a solid foundation for the policy enforcement and access control mechanisms in the Cloud-based systems and motivates further work within this field