bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Data Mining in Proteomics Using Grid Computing
Authors: Psomopoulos Fotis , Mitkas Pericles
Published: March 2012

The scope of this chapter is the presentation of Data Mining techniques for knowledge extraction in proteomics, taking into account both the particular features of most proteomics issues (such as data retrieval and system complexity), and the opportunities and constraints found in a Grid environment. The chapter discusses the way new and potentially useful knowledge can be extracted from proteomics data, utilizing Grid resources in a transparent way. Protein classification is introduced as a current research issue in proteomics, which also demonstrates most of the domain – specific traits. An overview of common and custom-made Data Mining algorithms is provided, with emphasis on the specific needs of protein classification problems. A unified methodology is presented for complex Data Mining processes on the Grid, highlighting the different application types and the benefits and drawbacks in each case. Finally, the methodology is validated through real-world case studies, deployed over the EGEE grid environment.
Facilitating Biodefense Research with Mobile-Cloud Computing
Authors: Zhang Jingyu , Yao Jinhui , Chen Shiping , Levy David
Published: March 2012

This paper proposes the use of a mobile-cloud by combining mobile devices and the cloud together in a biodefense and emerging infectious diseases (BEI) research application scenario. A mobile-cloud framework is developed to facilitate the use of mobile devices to collect data for, and manipulate and interact with the scientific workflows running in the Cloud. In this framework, an independent trusted accountability service is used to provide data provenance and enforce compliance among the participants of a biodefense research workflow. The authors have implemented a prototype which allows the researchers to use mobile devices to design and participate in biodefense workflows. The authors evaluated the effectiveness of the mobile-cloud with a prototype and conducted performance testing with example biodefense workflows.
Credential Management Enforcement and Secure Data Storage in gLite
Authors: Tusa Francesco , Villari Massimo , Puliafito Antonio
Published: March 2012

This article describes new security solutions for Grid middleware, and specifically faces the issues related to the management of users’ and servers’ credentials, together with storing and secure data transmission in the Grid. Our work, built on Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI), provides new capabilities (i.e. smart card Grid access, and strong security file storage XML-based) to be used on top of different Grid middlewares, with a low level of changes. This work is currently implemented on gLite and accomplishes the access to Grid resources in a uniform and transparent way. These improvements enable the Grid computing toward the new processing model known as business services.
Data Protection and Data Security Regarding Grid Computing in Biomedical Research
Authors: Mohammed Yassene , Viezens Fred , Dickmann Frank , Falkner Jürgen , Lingner Thomas , Krefting Dagmar , Sax Ulrich
Published: March 2012

This chapter describes security and privacy issues within the scope of biomedical Grid Computing. Grid Computing is of rising interest for life sciences (Konagaya, 2006) and has been used since many years in sciences like high energy physics. Anyhow, medical applications on the grid require a special focus on data security and data protection issues. Based on general security and privacy rules, the authors describe the current state of the art of grid security. Then they describe which additional security measures have to be established in different biomedical grid scenarios. Legal aspects have to be taken into account as well as the current possibilities and flaws of grid security technology. Describing the enhanced security concept in MediGRID (MediGRID, 2005) they outline how medical Grid Computing could fulfill privacy regulations used in more demanding environments.
Migrating Android Applications to the Cloud
Authors: Hung Shih-Hao , Shieh Jeng-Peng , Lee Chen-Pang
Published: March 2012

Recently, smartphone technologies have evolved quickly and offered end users the computing power and networking capabilities required to perform useful network and multimedia applications. However, due to limited physical sizes and battery capacities, the current generation of smartphones cannot yet fulfill the requirements of sophisticated applications of which personal computers are capable. One way to solve this problem is to minimize the workload on a smartphone as much as possible by offloading portions of an application to a server. The solution is particularly attractive today as cloud computing provides the needed server resources at relatively low costs. This paper proposes a novel, lightweight application migration mechanism for the users of smartphones to suspend the execution of applications and offload them to the cloud. The authors also developed a framework to perform Android applications efficiently with virtual phones in the cloud with a virtual storage. This paper discusses the migration mechanism and evaluates its effectiveness on the Android smartphone. This approach may effectively offload workload for Android applications even with low-speed mobile network.
Trust Management for Grid Systems
Authors: Aziz Benjamin , Arenas Alvaro , Martinelli Fabio , Mori Paolo , Petrocchi Marinella , Wilson Michael
Published: March 2012

Grid computing is a paradigm for distributed computation on shared resources. It uses a large-scale, highly decentralized infrastructure, in which a huge number of participants share heterogeneous resources for a given purpose. Each participant both provides their own resources and exploits others’ resources, combining them to solve their own problems. Trust management is a major issue in the shared Grid environment because Grid participants are usually unknown to each other and usually belong to separate administrative domains, with little or no common trust in the security of opposite infrastructures. The standard security support provided by the most common Grid middleware may be regarded as one means through which such common trust may be established. However, such security solutions are insufficient to exhaustively address all the trust requirements of Grid environments. In this chapter, the authors survey proposals for enhancing trust management in Grid systems.
The Cost-Based Resource Management in Combination with QoS for Grid Computing
Authors: Weng Chuliang , Cao Jian , Li Minglu
Published: March 2012

In the grid context, the scheduling can be grouped into two categories: offline scheduling and online scheduling. In the offline scheduling scenario, the sequence of jobs is known in advance, scheduling is based on information about all jobs in the sequence. While, in the online scheduling scenario a job is known only after all predecessors have been scheduled, and a job is scheduled only according to information of its predecessors in the sequence. This chapter focuses on resource management issue in the grid context, and introduces the two cost-based scheduling algorithms for offline job assignment and online job assignment on the computational grid, respectively.
Evaluating Heuristics for Scheduling Dependent Jobs in Grid Computing Environments
Authors: Falzon Geoffrey , Li Maozhen
Published: March 2012

Job scheduling plays a critical role in the utilisation of grid resources by mapping a number of jobs to grid resources. However, the heterogeneity of grid resources adds some challenges to the work of job scheduling, especially when jobs have dependencies which can be represented as Direct Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). It is widely recognised that scheduling m jobs to n resources with an objective to achieve a minimum makespan has shown to be NP-complete, requiring the development of heuristics. Although a number of heuristics are available for job scheduling optimisation, selecting the best heuristic to use in a given grid environment remains a difficult problem due to the fact that the performance of each original heuristic is usually evaluated under different assumptions. This paper evaluates 12 representative heuristics for dependent job scheduling under one set of common assumptions. The results are presented and analysed, which provides an even basis in comparison of the performance of those heuristics. To facilitate performance evaluation, a DAG simulator is implemented which provides a set of tools for DAG job configuration, execution, and monitoring. The components of the DAG simulator are also presented in this paper.
Balanced Job Scheduling Based on Ant Algorithm for Grid Network
Authors: Preve Nikolaos
Published: March 2012

Job scheduling in grid computing is a very important problem. To utilize grids efficiently, we need a good job scheduling algorithm to assign jobs to resources in grids. The main scope of this paper is to propose a new Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm for balanced job scheduling in the Grid environment. To achieve the above goal, we will indicate a way to balance the entire system load while minimizing the makespan of a given set of jobs. Based on the experimental results, the proposed algorithm confidently demonstrates its practicability and competitiveness compared with other job scheduling algorithms.
SIP Protocol for Supporting Grid Computing
Authors: Campi Aldo , Callegati Franco
Published: March 2012

This chapter advocates migrating sufficient functionality into the network as to allow direct support to grid computing services. This approach is realized by making use of session initiation protocol (sip) as the medium to support the signaling among grid applications and network. The authors elaborate on the advantages of this approach, which benefits directly from the session management capabilities of sip and enables application-oriented functions.
Survey on Grid Computing on Mobile Consumer Devices
Authors: Furthmüller Jochen , Waldhorst Oliver P.
Published: March 2012

Grid computing offers exciting possibilities for mobile consumer devices. The sharing of resources makes new, demanding applications feasible and helps to exploit previously unused potential. As the number of mobile devices for communication and computation increases, so does the appeal of a mobile grid. However, transferring the paradigm of grid computing to the domain of mobile devices is difficult: limited resources, intermittent connectivity, increased heterogeneity, and network dynamics are some of the many complicating factors. There are different approaches to tackling the isolated facets of this task. These avenues vary according to management structure, network architecture, the kind of shared resources, and whether the mobile devices merely use resources or also contribute resources to the grid. This chapter introduces a scheme for classifying approaches to establishing mobile grids with respect to these aspects. Furthermore, it provides a survey of these efforts and identifies remaining challenges and future trends.
Grid Workflows with Encompassed Business Relationships
Authors: Kyriazis Dimosthenis , Menychtas Andreas , Varvarigou Theodora
Published: March 2012

This chapter focuses on presenting and describing an approach that allows the mapping of workflow processes to Grid provided services by not only taking into account the quality of service (QoS) parameters of the Grid services but also the potential business relationships of the service providers that may affect the aforementioned QoS parameters. This approach is an integral part of the QoS provisioning, since this is the only way to estimate, calculate, and conclude to the mapping of workflows and the selection of the available service types and instances in order to deliver an overall quality of service across a federation of providers. The added value of this approach lays on the fact that business relationships of the service providers are also taken into account during the mapping process.
Error Recovery for SLA-Based Workflows within the Business Grid
Authors: Quan Dang Minh , Altmann Jörn , Yang Laurence T.
Published: March 2012

This chapter describes the error recovery mechanisms in the system handling the Grid-based workflow within the Service Level Agreement (SLA) context. It classifies the errors into two main categories. The first is the large-scale errors when one or several Grid sites are detached from the Grid system at a time. The second is the small-scale errors which may happen inside an RMS. For each type of error, the chapter introduces a recovery mechanism with the SLA context imposing the goal to the mechanisms. The authors believe that it is very useful to have an error recovery framework to avoid or eliminate the negative effects of the errors.
A Structured Content Analytic Assessment of Business Services Advertisements in the Cloud-Based Web Services Marketplace
Authors: Vannoy Sandra A.
Published: March 2012

The Internet and emerging technologies are facilitating the creation of new marketplaces designed to address a diverse range of business and societal needs. As companies are utilizing technology to manage their business processes, such a marketplace has emerged that is designed to provide third-party availability of business services delivered via Web services technology, particularly in the context of Cloud Computing. The Web Services Marketplace creates a common trading ground wherein buyers and sellers of business services can come together within a centralized marketplace. However, sellers of business services must provide a mechanism by which knowledge and awareness of the service is created for the buyer and a means by which sellers can effectively compete in the marketplace. The most widely accepted method for accomplishing these tasks is advertising. This study investigates the nascent phenomenon of the advertising of business services within the Web services marketplace, develops a theoretically grounded definition and characteristics of business services offered in the Web Services Marketplace, and develops a model for the effective advertisement of business services offered in the Web Services Marketplace.
Grid Service Level Agreements Using Financial Risk Analysis Techniques
Authors: Li Bin , Gillam Lee
Published: March 2012

Grid computing continues to hold promise for the high-availability of a wide range of computational systems and techniques. It is suggested that Grids will attain greater acceptance by a larger audience of commercial end-users if binding Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are provided. We discuss Grid commoditization, and in particular the use of Grid technologies for certain kinds of financial risk analysis where both data and computation requirements can be substantial. The nature of such analysis, and the need for it to run to completion, suggests the need to guarantee availability and capability in the underlying Grid infrastructure. This further suggests that it is necessary to be able to evaluate the infrastructure in relation both to historic analysis and to the needs of a specific analysis. Our aim, then, becomes one of predicting availability and capability, essentially introducing risk analysis for Grids. Prediction, quantification of risk, and consideration of liability in case of failure, are considered essential for the future provision of Grid Economics – specifically, relating to the provision of SLAs through resource brokers, and comparable to markets in other commodities – but perhaps also more widely applicable to the configuration and management of related architectures such as those of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and Cloud Computing systems. The authors explore and evaluate some of the factors required for the automatic construction of SLAs, with broad consideration for Financial Risk and the potential formulation of a Grid Economy as a commodity market, which may in future involve the trading and hedging of risk, options, futures and structured products.
SMEs and FOS-ERP Systems
Authors: Stefanou Constantinos J.
Published: March 2012

Free/Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning (FOS-ERP) software is an emerging phenomenon having the potential to revolutionize the ERP market worldwide. This chapter focuses on the FOS-ERP market for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and aims at informing managers, scholars, students and researchers of the opportunities and the related risks for SMEs wishing to adopt and implement a FOS-ERP solution. It is widely accepted that SMEs, which have limited capital and other resources, are among the organizations to be benefited by the existence of FOS-ERP by acquiring a system similar to that used by large enterprises. At the same time there are certain risks in adopting a FOS-ERP solution such as security issues and hidden costs. Guidelines for SMEs to eliminate these risks are provided. In order to define the backdrop of FOS-ERP systems, Web 2.0, cloud computing and Open Source Software (OSS) are also discussed.
Business Models for On-line Social Networks
Authors: Rana Omer F. , Caton Simon
Published: March 2012

With the increasingly ubiquitous nature of social networks and Cloud computing, users are starting to explore new ways to interact with and exploit these developing paradigms. Social networks reflect real world relationships that allow users to share information and form connections, essentially creating dynamic virtual communities. By leveraging the pre-established trust formed through friend relationships within a social network “Social Clouds” can be realized, which enable friends to share resources within the context of a social network. The creation of Social Clouds gives rise to new business models through collaboration within social networks. In this paper, the authors describe such business models and discuss their impact.
Optimal Service Ordering in Decentralized Queries Over Web Services
Authors: Tsamoura Efthymia , Gounaris Anastasios , Manolopoulos Yannis
Published: March 2012

The problem of ordering expensive predicates (or filter ordering) has recently received renewed attention due to emerging computing paradigms such as processing engines for queries over remote Web Services, and cloud and grid computing. The optimization of pipelined plans over services differs from traditional optimization significantly, since execution takes place in parallel and thus the query response time is determined by the slowest node in the plan, which is called the bottleneck node. Although polynomial algorithms have been proposed for several variants of optimization problems in this setting, the fact that communication links are typically heterogeneous in wide-area environments has been largely overlooked. The authors propose an attempt to optimize linear orderings of services when the services communicate directly with each other and the communication links are heterogeneous. The authors propose a novel optimal algorithm to solve this problem efficiently. The evaluation of the proposal shows that it can result in significant reductions of the response time.
Principles, Methodology and Tools for Engineering Cloud Computing Systems
Authors: Vaquero Luis M. , Rodero-Merino Luis , Cáceres Juan , Chapman Clovis , Lindner Maik , Galán Fermín
Published: March 2012

Cloud computing has emerged as a paradigm to provide every networked resource as a service. The Cloud has also introduced a new way to control cloud services (mainly due to the illusion of infinite resources and its on-demand and pay-per-use nature). Here, we present this lifecycle and highlight recent research initiatives that serve as a support for appropriately engineering Cloud systems during the different stages of its lifecycle.
Cloud Computing Towards Technological Convergence
Authors: Sasikala P.
Published: March 2012

With the popularization and improvement of social and industrial IT development, information appears to explosively increase, and people put much higher expectations on the services of computing, communication and network. Today’s public communication network is developing in the direction that networks are widely interconnected using communication network infrastructure as backbone and Internet protocols; at the same time, cloud computing, a computing paradigm in the ascendant, provides new service modes. Communication technology has the trend of developing towards computing technology and applications, and computing technology and applications have the trend of stepping towards service orientation architecture. Communication technology and information technology truly comes to a convergence. Telecom operators are planning to be providers of comprehensive information services in succession. To adopt cloud computing technology not only facilitates the upgrade of their communication network technology, service platform and supporting systems, but also facilitates the construction of the infrastructure and operating capacity of providing comprehensive information services. In this paper, the development processes of public communication network and computing are reviewed along with some new concepts for cloud computing.
Policy for Mobile Devices to Access Grid Infrastructure
Authors: Munir Kashif , Mohammed Lawan A.
Published: March 2012

Mobile devices are gradually becoming prevalent in our daily life, enabling users in the physical world to interact with the digital world conveniently. Mobile devices increasingly offer functionality beyond the one provided by traditional resources processor, memory and applications. This includes, for example, integrated multimedia equipment, intelligent positioning systems, and different kinds of integrated or accessible sensors. For future generation grids to be truly ubiquitous we must find ways to compensate for the limitations inherent in these devices and integrate them into the grid, in order to leverage available resources and broaden the range of supplied services. On the other hand, most of mobile devices do not have the sufficient capabilities to be either direct clients or services in the grid environment. The existing middleware platforms like Globus do not fully address mobility, yet extending the potential of the Grid to a wider audience promises increase in its flexibility and productivity. This chapter looks into design architecture for mobile computing environment. Focus is given to security and its policies that will enhance the performance of grid computing in terms of secure design, architecture, accessibility, and mobility.
Security Issues in Cloud Computing
Authors: Dahbur Kamal , Mohammad Bassil , Tarakji Ahmad Bisher
Published: March 2012

Cloud Computing (CC) is revolutionizing the methodology by which IT services are being utilized. It is being introduced and marketed with many attractive promises that are enticing to many companies and managers, such as reduced capital costs and relief from managing complex information technology infrastructure. However, along with desirable benefits come risks and security concerns that must be considered and addressed correctly. Thus, security issues must be considered as a major issue when considering Cloud Computing. This paper discusses Cloud Computing and its related concepts; highlights and categorizes many of the security issues introduced by the “cloud”; surveys the risks, threats, and vulnerabilities; and makes the necessary recommendations that can help promote the benefits and mitigate the risks associated with Cloud Computing.
Security Standards and Issues for Grid Computing
Authors: Moralis Athanasios , Pouli Vassiliki , Grammatikou Mary , Kalogeras Dimitrios , Maglaris Vasilis
Published: March 2012

Security in grid environments that are built using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) technologies is a great challenge. On one hand, the great diversity in security technologies, mechanisms and protocols that each organization follows and on the other hand, the different goals and policies that these organizations adopt, comprise a complex security environment. Authenticating and authorizing users and services, identity management in a multi-organizational scenario and secure communication define the main context of the problem. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the security protocols and technologies that can be applied on a Web Service (WS) based grid environment.
Aspects of Visualization and the Grid in a Biomedical Context
Authors: Greenshields Ian , El-Sayed Gamal
Published: March 2012

This chapter introduces some aspects of visualization and the grid. Visualization --the art and science of representing data visually-- is now recognized as an equal partner in the conduct of science via the simulation and modeling paradigm. Although not usually associated with Grid-scale problems, there are a number of Grid-dominant issues which subtend visualization. Evidently, certain data grooming issues (e.g., image preprocessing/analysis, certain computational geometric processes, certain computational topological processes) are amenable to deployment over compute Grids, but there has been equal focus on the collaborative aspect of Grid computing which is driving collaboration-based visualization systems. Here we survey some of the roles of visualization as they relate to the role of Grid computing within a biomedical context. We conclude by examining certain scheduling strategies we believe to have value in terms of the distribution of visualization tasks over Grid fabrics.
Survey on the Application of Economic and Market Theory for Grid Computing
Authors: Xie Xia , Huang Jin , Wu Song , Jin Hai , Koh Melvin , Song Jie , See Simon
Published: March 2012

In this chapter, we present a survey on some of the commercial players in the Grid industry, existing research done in the area of market-based Grid technology and some of the concepts of dynamic pricing model that we have investigated. In recent years, it has been observed that commercial companies are slowly shifting from owning their own IT assets in the form of computers, software and so forth, to purchasing services from utility providers. Technological advances, especially in the area of Grid computing, have been the main catalyst for this trend. The utility model may not be the most effective model and the price still needs to be determined at the point of usage. In general, market-based approaches are more efficient in resource allocations, as it depends on price adjustment to accommodate fluctuations in the supply and demand. Therefore, determining the price is vital to the overall success of the market.
Grid Computing for Ontology Matching
Authors: Tenschert Axel
Published: March 2012

This chapter is examines the challenge of ontology matching in a grid environment in a scalable and high efficient way. For this, ontology matching approaches as well as grid computing are considered with the aim to present an approach for ontology matching on various resources. Hence, related approaches and tools are presented and discussed in order to provide an adequate background. Through this, a distributed ontology matching as it is required for ontology matching in a distributed environment such as the grid becomes usable. However, a novel ontology matching approach which meets the requirements of a grid architecture is considered in this chapter.
PheGee@Home
Authors: Schmidt Bertil , Chen Chen , Liu Weiguo , Mitchell Wayne P.
Published: March 2012

In this chapter we present PheGee@Home, a grid-based comparative genomics tool that nominates candidate genes responsible for a given phenotype. A phenotype is the physical manifestation of the interplay of genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors. Our tool is designed to facilitate the discovery and prioritization of candidate genes controlling or contributing to the genetically determined portion of a specified phenotype. However, in order to make reliable nominations of candidate genes from sequence data, several genome-size sequence datasets are required. This makes the approach impractical on traditional computer architectures leading to prohibitively long runtimes. Therefore, we use a computational architecture based on a desktop grid environment and commodity graphics hardware to significantly accelerate PheGee. We validate this approach by showing the deployment and evaluation on a grid testbed for the comparison of microbial genomes.
A Complementary Approach to Grid and Cloud Distributed Computing Paradigms
Authors: Sheikhalishahi Mehdi , Devare Manoj , Grandinetti Lucio , Incutti Maria Carmen
Published: March 2012

Cloud computing is a new kind of computing model and technology introduced by industry leaders in recent years. Nowadays, it is the center of attention because of various excellent promises. However, it brings some challenges and arguments among computing leaders about the future of computing models and infrastructure. For example, whether it is going to be in place of other technologies in computing like grid or not, is an interesting question. In this chapter, we address this issue by considering the original grid architecture. We show how cloud can be put in the grid architecture to complement it. As a result, we face some shadow challenges to be addressed.
Energy-Efficiency in Cloud Computing Environments
Authors: Moreno Ismael Solis , Xu Jie
Published: March 2012

Due to all the pollutants generated during its production and the steady increases in its rates, energy consumption is causing serious environmental and economic problems. In this context, the growing use and adoption of ICTs is being highlighted not only as one as the principal problem sources but also as one of the principal areas that could help in the problem’s reduction. Cloud computing is an emerging model for distributed utility computing and is being considered as an attractive opportunity for saving energy through central management of computational resources. To be successful, the design of energy-efficient mechanisms must start playing a mayor role. This paper argues the importance of energy-efficient mechanisms within cloud data centers and remarks on the significance of the “energy-performance” relationship in boosting the adoption of these mechanisms in real scenarios. It provides an analysis of the current approaches and the outline of key opportunities that need to be addressed to improve the “energy-performance” relationship in this promising model.
System Design and Data Fusion in Body Sensor Networks
Authors: Lin Kai , Chen Min , Rodrigues Joel J. P. C. , Ge Hongwei
Published: March 2012

Body Sensor Networks (BSNs) are formed by the equipped or transplanted sensors in the human body, which can sense the physiology and environment parameters. As a novel e-health technology, BSNs promote the deployment of innovative healthcare monitoring applications. In the past few years, most of the related research works have focused on sensor design, signal processing, and communication protocol. This chapter addresses the problem of system design and data fusion technology over a bandwidth and energy constrained body sensor network. Compared with the traditional sensor network, miniaturization and low-power are more important to meet the requirements to facilitate wearing and long-running operation. As there are strong correlations between sensory data collected from different sensors, data fusion is employed to reduce the redundant data and the load in body sensor networks. To accomplish the complex task, more than one kind of node must be equipped or transplanted to monitor multi-targets, which makes the fusion process become sophisticated. In this chapter, a new BSNs system is designed to complete online diagnosis function. Based on the principle of data fusion in BSNs, we measure and investigate its performance in the efficiency of saving energy. Furthermore, the authors discuss the detection and rectification of errors in sensory data. Then a data evaluation method based on Bayesian estimation is proposed. Finally, the authors verify the performance of the designed system and the validity of the proposed data evaluation method. The chapter is concluded by identifying some open research issues on this topic.
Body Sensors and Healthcare Monitoring
Authors: Otal Begonya , Alonso Luis , Verikoukis Christos V.
Published: March 2012

The aging population and the high expectations towards quality of life in our society lead to the need of more efficient and affordable medical systems and monitoring solutions. The development of wireless Body Sensor Networks (BSNs) offers a platform to establish such a healthcare monitoring systems. However, BSNs in the healthcare domain operate under conflicting requirements. These are the maintenance of the desired reliability and message latency of data transmissions (i.e. quality of service), while simultaneously maximizing battery lifetime of individual body sensors. In doing so, the characteristics of the entire system, especially the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, have to be considered. For this reason, this chapter aims for the optimization of the MAC layer by using energy-saving techniques for BSNs. The fact that the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC does not fully satisfy BSNs requirements highlights the need for the design of new scalable MAC solutions, which guarantee low-power consumption to the maximum number of body sensors in high density areas (i.e., in saturation conditions). In order to emphasize IEEE 802.15.4 MAC limitations, this chapter presents a detailed overview of this de facto standard for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which serves as a link for the introduction and description of the here proposed Distributed Queuing (DQ) MAC protocol for BSN scenarios. Within this framework, an extensive DQ MAC energy-consumption analysis in saturation conditions is presented to be able to evaluate its performance in relation to IEEE 802.5.4 MAC in highly dense BSNs. The obtained results show that the proposed scheme outperforms IEEE 802.15.4 MAC in average energy consumption per information bit, thus providing a better overall performance that scales appropriately to BSNs under high traffic conditions. These benefits are obtained by eliminating back-off periods and collisions in data packet transmissions, while minimizing the control overhead.
Smart Clothing for Health Care
Authors: Garcia Nuno M. , Sousa Paula Sofia , Trindade Isabel G. , Miguel Rui , Lucas José
Published: March 2012

The use of wearable technologies in medicine and health care has become of important in order to considerably improve benefits for patients and health service providers. Within telemedicine, biomedical clothing plays a crucial role. The main technology advances and the research of the Textile and Paper Materials Research Unit (UMTP) and of the Assisted Living Computing and Telecommunications Laboratory (ALLab) teams, in the area, will be addressed. Issues that remain unsolved will be presented. The chapter presents an overview of the key concepts for telemedicine and the role of textile electrodes and their integration in smart clothing. The development of software algorithms that specifically handle signals that are collected using biomedical clothing, integrating resiliency and a proper set of alarms, is presented and discussed in the context of classical biomedical signal processing. Finally, biomedical clothing design will be discussed in social, psychological, and esthetical contexts.
Designing the E-Health Message
Authors: Misra Rupananda , Wallace Barbara C.
Published: March 2012

The tremendous growth in the use of Web 2.0 technologies, interactive computer technologies, electronic records, and mobile devices for delivery of e-health necessitates attention to design. Designing e-health requires consideration of research, including best practices embodied in design principles. This chapter reviews key background information, including central definitions, concepts, and research, followed by a presentation of 9 key considerations that are recommended for guiding the design of e-health messages. An illustrative case example demonstrates how a typology that codifies design principles gave rise to a research tool that permits the evaluation of health care websites. The case example underscores the important role of findings from research evaluations in creating a feedback loop for designers, permitting research to inform refinements in design. Overall, the 9 key considerations suggest a new paradigm for design, while also giving rise to corresponding recommendations for future research to support evolution in the field of e-health.
Overview of the Most Important Open Source Software
Authors: Sainz de Abajo Beatriz , Ballestero Agustín Llamas
Published: March 2012

In this chapter, the authors review software that enables the proper management of EHR. The different types of software share the feature of being open source and offer the best opportunity in health care to developing countries—an overall integrated approach. The authors analyze the main free software programs (technical features, programming languages, places for introduction, etc.). Then they focus on the description and the comparison of the three most important open source software programs EHR (OpenMRS, OpenVistA, and OpenEMR) that are installed on two operating systems (Linux Ubuntu and Windows). Finally, the authors show the results of the various parameters measured in these systems after using different Web browsers. The results show us how the three main EHR applications work depending on which operating system is installed and which web browser is used.
Public Health ICT Based Surveillance System
Authors: Kern Josipa , Erceg Marijan , Poljicanin Tamara , Sovic Slavica , Fišter Kristina , Ivankovic Davor , Vuletic Silvije
Published: March 2012

The Public Health Surveillance System (PHSS) is defined as the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of health-related data essential to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice. It serves as an early warning system, guides public health policy and strategies, documents the impact of an intervention or progress towards specified public health targets/goals, and understands and monitors the epidemiology of a condition to set priorities and guide public health policy and strategies. For this purpose, the PHSS should: be ICT-based and comprehensive with clearly defined sources, volumes, and standards of data; include all the stakeholders with information they produce, with enough flexibility in the dynamic of constructing indicators; be safe and able to produce information on demand and on time; and be able to act as a risk management system by providing warnings/reminders/alerts to prevent unwanted events.
Digital Economy and Innovative Practices in Healthcare Services
Authors: Spinelli Riccardo , Benevolo Clara
Published: March 2012

In this chapter, the authors analyze the impact of the new ICT-driven economic paradigm—the digital economy—on healthcare services. The increasing adoption of ICT in healthcare has been very fruitful and has led to the innovative approach to healthcare practice commonly known as e-health. Here the authors first propose a framework, consisting of six elements, whose mutual interaction outlines the structure and the dynamics of the digital economy. Then, a classification scheme of services is presented, which considers their characteristics and their delivery modes; this scheme supports understanding the way in which the adoption of ICT impacts healthcare services. Finally, an overall explanatory outline is constructed that allows one to analyze and understand the origins, implications, and future perspectives of the changes that ICT has brought to healthcare services. Examples of e-health applications are traced back to the building blocks of the framework, isolating the impact of each driver on their structure, configuration, and delivery modes.
Clinical-Pull Approach to Telemedicine Implementation Policies using Health Informatics in the Developing World
Authors: Treurnicht Maria J. , van Dyk Liezl
Published: March 2012

Telemedicine could effectively aid hospital referral systems in bringing specialized care to rural communities. South Africa has identified telemedicine as part of its primary health care strategic plan, but similar to many other developing countries, the successful implementation of telemedicine programs is a daunting challenge. One of the contributing factors is the insufficient evidence that telemedicine is a cost-effective alternative. Furthermore, many telemedicine services are implemented without a thorough needs assessment. Throughout this chapter, the authors investigate the use of medical informatics in quantitative telemedicine needs assessments. A framework is introduced to direct implementation policies towards a proven clinical need rather than pushing technology into practise. This clinical-pull strategy aims to reduce the amount of failed projects, by providing decision support to implement appropriate technologies that have the potential to contribute towards better quality healthcare.
Bridging the Abridged
Authors: Gao Xiaohong W. , Loomes Martin , Comley Richard
Published: March 2012

In this chapter, a comprehensive review of the development of telemedicine in China, with the focus on the establishment of PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications Systems) and image-guided tele-surgery, will be accounted for together with a comparative study in reference to the counterparts in Europe, leading to a framework of a sustainable, scalable, and flexible e-health infrastructure for the future global digital (paper-less) hospital. The study is drawn from the first-hand knowledge gained through the conduction of a 3-year networking project on Telemedicine: Tele-Imaging in Medicine (TIME, 2005-2007) funded by the European Commission under the Asia-link programme. It is the authors’ hope that this chapter resonates with the future prospect of telemedicine by providing the right contents, at the right time and to the right extent, especially when the implementations taking place are in countries with disparate economic development.
Balancing Digital Freedoms and Digital Liberties
Authors: Colburn Bobbe Cummins , Nolin Julie
Published: March 2012

This chapter focuses on consumer and human rights through technological application in today’s globalized world. Being a well-versed citizen of technology provides better understanding of restrictions and limitations of protections as well as securities. Companies, corporations, countries, individuals, and unsuspecting parties may willingly or unwilling neglect freedoms or even place liberties in jeopardy, depending on the statutes in place for protection. In an effort to protect the individual, it is important to safeguard the roles we play as a society in the technological globalized enterprise.
The “Right to be Forgotten” in the Era of Social Media and Cloud Computing
Authors: Giannakaki Maria
Published: March 2012

The globalization and ubiquitous character of information in the era of social media and cloud computing has led to a loss of control over individuals’ own data, who face significant difficulties to understand and measure the consequences of the disclosure of their personal information on the Internet, as well as the means and the context in which they are or will be processed. Under the reviewing process of the EU Data Protection Directive, the “right to be forgotten” appears to be the means by which individuals will be able to regain control over their data. However, implementing the new right in the ICT environment and striking the proper balance between conflicting rights, such as the freedom of expression, will not be easy. The purpose of the chapter is to identify the challenges that Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and cloud computing technologies raise, focusing on how these challenges are addressed under the new “right to be forgotten” and providing an insight of the alternative “quasi legal” measures that emerge.
The Right to Privacy and the Protection of Personal Data in a Digital Era and the Age of Information
Authors: Bülow William , Wester Misse
Published: March 2012

As information technology is becoming an integral part of modern society, there is a growing concern that too much data containing personal information is stored by different actors in society and that this could potentially be harmful for the individual. The aim of this contribution is to show how the extended use of ICT can affect the individual’s right to privacy and how the public perceives risks to privacy. Three points are raised in this chapter: first, if privacy is important from a philosophical perspective, how is this demonstrated by empirical evidence? Do individuals trust the different actors that control their personal information, and is there a consensus that privacy can and should be compromised in order to reach another value? Second, if compromises in privacy are warranted by increased safety, is this increased security supported by empirical evidence? Third, the authors will argue that privacy can indeed be a means to increase the safety of citizens and that the moral burden of ensuring and protecting privacy is a matter for policy makers, not individuals. In conclusion, the authors suggest that more nuanced discussion on the concepts of privacy and safety should be acknowledged and the importance of privacy must be seen as an important objective in the development and structure of ICT uses.
Assessing the Evaluation of the EC Data Retention Directive
Authors: Loideain Nóra Ní
Published: March 2012

The focus of this chapter is the first evaluation of European legislation designed to harmonise domestic laws on the retention of telecommunications data for the purpose of assisting law enforcement efforts. The European Union introduced the EC Data Retention Directive in 2006. This Directive requires the retention of every European citizen’s communications data for up to two years for the purpose of investigation, detection, and prosecution of serious crime, as defined by each Member State in their domestic legislation. The Directive was the source of considerable unease amongst legislators, Data Protection authorities, and the private sector. This chapter analyses the results provided in this evaluation on the use and operation of the Directive by individual Member States of the EU.
Cultural Property and Identity Issues in International Law
Authors: Yupsanis Athanasios
Published: March 2012

Indigenous peoples have historically experienced countless losses of cultural relics and material and spiritual treasures as well as destruction of their sacred cultural sites, a situation that continues to prevail. This desecration of ancestral sites and pillaging of sacred objects results in the cultural debasement of indigenous peoples, causing a serious threat to their continuing collective existence as distinct societies. Unfortunately, the present international law regime for the protection, repatriation, and return of stolen and illegally exported cultural property presents serious deficiencies as regards its ability to reverse this state of affairs and effectively safeguard indigenous peoples’ heritage.
Optimal Crashing and Buffering of Stochastic Serial Projects
Authors: Trietsch Dan
Published: March 2012

Crashing stochastic activities implies changing their distributions to reduce the mean. This can involve changing the variance too. Therefore, crashing can change not only the expected duration of a project but also the necessary size of its safety buffer. We consider optimal crashing of serial projects where the objective is to minimize total costs including crashing cost and expected delay penalty. As part of the solution we determine optimal safety buffers. They allow for activities that are statistically dependent because they share an error element (e.g., when all durations have been estimated by one person, when weather or general economic conditions influence many activities, etc). We show that under plausible conditions the problem is convex and thus it can be solved by standard numerical search procedures. The purpose of the paper is to encourage software development that will include valid stochastic analysis for scheduling and crashing using current estimates and historical performance records.