Providing User Security Guarantees in Public Infrastructure Clouds

The infrastructure cloud (IaaS) service model offers improved resource flexibility and availability, where tenants - insulated from the minutiae of hardware maintenance - rent computing resources to deploy and operate complex systems. Large-scale services running on IaaS platforms demonstrate the viability of this model; nevertheless, many organizations operating on sensitive data avoid migrating operations to IaaS platforms due to security concerns. In this paper, we describe a framework for data and operation security in IaaS, consisting of protocols for a trusted launch of virtual machines and domain-based storage protection. We continue with an extensive theoretical analysis with proofs about protocol resistance against attacks in the defined threat model. The protocols allow trust to be established by remotely attesting host platform configuration prior to launching guest virtual machines and ensure confidentiality of data in remote storage, with encryption keys maintained outside of the IaaS domain. Presented experimental results demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the proposed protocols. The framework prototype was implemented on a test bed operating a public electronic health record system, showing that the proposed protocols can be integrated into existing cloud environments.

Muslims in Public and Media Discourse in Western Europe: The Reproduction of Aporia and Exclusion

This chapter scrutinizes the dominant public discourse in Western Europe. Drawing on examples from the UK, Germany, and France but also from the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain it illustrates the gradual transformation of discourse from an “exotic Islam” to a “threatening Islam” that endangers European values and safety and suggests that the combination of this “securitization” of Islam and the monopoly of the “Muslim voice” by radical Muslim activists leads to a vicious circle of misrecognition and enhancing the aporia of Europe's Muslims.

Special Issue Editorial: ‘Community Voices: Perspectives in public service translation’

Editorial

Engaging with the public in public engagement with research

Though there is now growing commitment to publicly engaged research, the role and definition of the public in such processes is wide-ranging, contested, and often rather vague. This article addresses this problem by showing that, although there is no single agreed upon theory or way of being public, it is still possible and very important to develop clear, public-centric, understandings of engaged research practice. The article introduces a multi-dimensional framework based on the theoretical literature on the ‘public’, and demonstrates – in the context of a recent engaged research project – how it possible to conceptualise, design and evaluate context-specific formations of the public. Starting from an understanding of publics as mediated and dynamic entities, the article seeks to illuminate some of the choices that researchers face and how the framework can help them navigate these. This article is for all those interested in what it means to address, support and account for an engaged public in contemporary settings.

Making a difference? Public service broadcasting, distinctiveness and children’s provision in Italy and Spain

This article evaluates the performance of public service broadcasters in the area of children’s television in Italy and Spain. It asks: how distinctive is the output of public service children’s channels? As core area of public service provision, children’s television represents an important testing ground for wider debates about the distinctiveness of public service broadcasting in a digital age. Public broadcasters in Southern Europe have historically been more vulnerable to market pressure than their counterparts in continental and Northern Europe, and this is believed to have impacted negatively on their ability to maintain a distinctive public service profile. After engaging with debates on distinctiveness in order to develop a framework for the analysis, the article presents the results of a two-week analysis of the TV schedules of the main children’s channels operating in the two countries. It finds evidence that in both countries the output of public service children’s channels is distinctive to a degree, but also that there are important gaps in public service provision as well as some significant differences between the public service children’s channels analysed.

Disability Discrimination: Obesity and the Court of Justice of the European Union’s decision in Karsten Kaltoft v Billund Kommune Case C-354/13 ECJ

Walker and Karsten are two important decisions in disability discrimination law – not solely on the basis of their legal and practical repercussions for the United Kingdom (UK) and European Union (EU), respectively, but because they capture the very ideological spirit of domestic and European anti-discrimination legislation. The former directly relates to disability discrimination in the UK and the entire EU is feeling the brunt of the Court of Justice of the European Union’s decision in the latter. This article explores the impact of both these decisions and to what extent the obese or those suffering from a functional overlay are now protected from being discriminated against by the Framework Directive 2000/78 and the United Kingdom’s Equality Act 2010.

Managing the transition to work: the role of the planning network in British town planning education

The development of town planning education in the United Kingdom can be traced back over at least sixty years and has always enjoyed a close relationship with practitioners, employers and the professional body, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). In order to ensure an intake of sufficient quality to a growing profession, the Institute offered its own exams until the 1980s and then initiated the current system of accrediting both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of study. This system of accreditation emphasises the importance of relevant knowledge, skills and values as well as core and specialised studies. The vocational nature of town planning requires that graduates have the breadth of understanding as well as the practical skills in order to practice effectively. Thus accredited courses have over time developed strong links with employers and practitioners. Rapid developments in the scope and range of planning, and the skills needed to work in it, have reflected changes in public policy and growing number of agencies concerned with the built environment. The system of regular quinquennial visits to accredit courses has helped ensure that this acceptance of change has become part of the culture of planning schools.

Transformation or bureaucratisation?: the changing role of community representation in local strategic partnerships in England

The debate about the need to build social capital and to engage local communities in public policy has become a central issue in many advanced liberal societies and developing countries. In many countries new forms of governance have emerged out of a growing realisation that representative democracy by itself is no longer sufficient. One of the most significant public policy trends in the UK has been the involvement of community organisations and their members in the delivery of national policy, mediated through local systems of governance and management. One such policy area is urban regeneration. Central government now requires local authorities in England to set up Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) to bring together stakeholders who can prepare Community Strategies and deliver social and economic programmes which target areas of deprivation. This paper reviews the key institutional processes which must be addressed, such as representation, accountability and transformation.

Congressional acquiescence to presidentialism in the US ‘War on Terror’

Congressional dominance theory holds that not only can the US Congress control the executive, it does. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and the Bush administration's ensuing global 'war on terror' suggest a different result. Bush's response to 9/11 signalled not only new directions in US foreign and domestic policy but a new stage in the aggrandisement of presidential power in the United States and a further step in the marginalisation of the Congress. Informed by a constitutional doctrine unknown to the framers of the US Constitution, the Bush administration pursued a presidentialist or 'ultra-separationist' governing strategy that was disrespectful to the legislature's intended role in the separated system. Using its unilateral powers, in public and in secret, claiming 'inherent' authority from the Constitution, and exploiting the public's fear of a further terrorist attack and of endangering the lives of US troops abroad, the administration skilfully drove its legislation through the Congress. Occasionally, the Congress was able to extract concessions - notably in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when partisan control of the government was split - but more typically, for most of the period, the Congress acquiesced to administration demands, albeit with the consolation of minor concessions. The administration not only dominated the lawmaking process, it also cowed legislators into legitimating often highly controversial (and sometimes illegal) administration-determined definitions of counter-terrorism and national security policy. Certainly, the Congress undertook a considerable amount of oversight during the period of the 'war on terror'; lawmakers also complained. But the effects on policy were marginal. This finding held true for periods of Democratic as well as Republican majorities.

Reducing job-irrelevant bias in performance and appraisals: compliance and beyond

Job-irrelevant discrimination seems as ubiquitous as the performance appraisals in which it is commonly detected. This paper explores both compliance-based and more proactive approaches that deal with the various possible sources of discrimination in performance appraisal ratings. The suggestions lead to a code of practice for performance management in firms across cultures and national boundaries.