Smart-RBAC

Generally, smart campus applications do not consider the role of the user with his/her position in a university environment, consequently irrelevant information is delivered to the users. This dissertation proposes a location-based access control model, named Smart-RBAC, extending the functionality of Role-based Access Control Model (RBAC) by including user’s location as the contextual attribute, to solve the aforementioned problem. Smart-RBAC model is designed with a focus on content delivery to the user in order to offer a feasible level of flexibility, which was missing in the existing location-based access control models. An instance of the model, derived from Liferay’s RBAC, is implemented by creating a portal application to test and validate the Smart-RBAC model. Additionally, portlet-based applications are developed to assess the suitability of the model in a smart campus environment. The evaluation of the model, based on a popular theoretical framework, demonstrates the model’s capability to achieve some security goals like “Dynamic Separation of Duty” and “Accountability”. We believe that the Smart-RBAC model will improve the existing smart campus applications since it utilizes both, role and location of the user, to deliver content.

Shiva's dance: Crisis, local institutions and private firms

The uneven spatial distribution of start-ups and their respective survival may reflect comparative advantages resulting from the local institutional background. For the first time, we explore this idea using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess the relative efficiency of Portuguese municipalities in this specific context. We depart from the related literature where expenditure is perceived as a desirable input by choosing a measure of fiscal responsibility and infrastructural variables in the first stage. Comparing results for 2006 and 2010, we find that mean performance decreased substantially 1) with the effects of the Global Financial Crisis, 2) as municipal population increases and 3) as financial independence decreases. A second stage is then performed employing a double-bootstrap procedure to evaluate how the regional context outside the control of local authorities (e.g. demographic characteristics and political preferences) impacts on efficiency.