How general practitioners determine young people's rights

To explore how Victorian general practitioners understand and apply relevant legal authority when faced with a. young person who requests the oral contraceptive pill, over 300 doctors were asked to make decisions about a hypothetical patient's competence and confidentiality. Respondents presented a range of philosophical perspectives about young people's entitlements, and operationalised legal authority in a variety of ways. The data indicate that the assumptions embedded in relevant law, the vague nature of existing legal criteria and the evident diversity in assessment practices all have the potential to act as obstacles to young people's claim to rights in the medical context.

How do teachers investigate scientific concepts in an Early Childhood Environment?

Early Childhood Educators have an important role to fulfil in aiding children's development and understandings in the science curriculum. There are many different views and opinions on how science can be taught in an Early Childhood environment, it is therefore our aim to investigate how teachers feel about teaching science concepts and promoting science in the early childhood centre. We aim to discover how everyday activities relate to the nature of science within our everyday lives. The science curriculum is important in Early Childhood settings as it provides children with various opportunities to explore the natural world. We are hoping to gain a deeper understanding of how teachers are guiding and encouraging children to make sense of their experiences. It is also important that we explore how Early Childhood Educators understand their own practice in teaching science concepts in their curriculum.

Description of project: We will be completing a small inquiry based task which will require us to compile data collected from interviews, recordings from teachers in long day and kindergarten settings around the Geelong region.

Methodology: ln order to undertake this research we will be using a socio cultural framework, focusing on language in the social environment and play (basing our ideas on the theories of Vygotsky). We will be undertaking narrative accounts to obtain data which will be collated from three different sources.

Ethical implications of projects: We do not foresee any significant risks to any participant in this study. The topic of the research is uncontroversial, and we will be taking measures to ensure anonymity or confidentiality where appropriate.

Integrating data to facilitate clinical research : a case study

The integration of routine clinical administrative activities into ongoing rigorous clinical research poses challenges for both clinicians and researchers. This case study describes the development of a responsive database system used to facilitate comprehensive longitudinal research into the outcomes of patients waiting for hip and knee replacement surgery in a large public teaching hospital. The initial research procedure was paper-based, with manual patient matching and data entry. This process was time-consuming and associated with substantial risk of error and omissions, necessitating the design of a better system. An integrated database system was designed to receive daily electronic updates of the orthopaedic waiting-list and scheduled clinic and surgery dates. Using readily available software (Microsoft Access), new patients were identified through specifying inclusion and exclusion criteria which allowed rapid and complete recruitment at time of entry to the waiting-list. The integrated system specified the appropriate timing of multiple follow-up assessments, provided prompt information on recruitment for reporting purposes and integrated multiple linked research projects within one database. Seamless exporting of data to statistical programs for analysis was also enabled. This simple integrated approach facilitated efficient execution of a longitudinal study from recruitment to statistical analysis while maximising confidentiality and minimising resources required. This case study describes the development and design of a simple system which could be easily adapted for database management in hospital or clinic-based settings according to local requirements.

Agents based e-commerce and securing exchanged information

Mobile agents have been implemented in e-commerce to search and filter information of interest from electronic markets. When the in format ion is very sensitive and critical, it is important to develop a novel security protocol that can efficiently protect the information from malicious tampering as well as unauthorized disclosure or at least detect any malicious act of intruders. In this chapter, we describe robust security techniques that ensure a sound security of information gathered throughout agent's itinerary against various security attacks, as well as truncation attacks. A sound security protocol is described , which implements the various security techniques that would jointly prevent or at least detect any malicious act of intruders. We reason about the soundness of the protocol using Symbolic Trace Analyzer (STA), a formal verification tool that is based on symbolic techniques. We analyze the protocol in key configurations and show that it is free of flaws. We also show that the protocol fulfils the various security requirements of exchanged information in MAS, including data-integrity, data-confidentiality, data authenticity, origin confidentiality and data non-repudiability.

A privacy preserving service broker architecture for data sharing

The problem addressed in this paper is how to ensure data privacy concerns when data is shared between multiple organisations. In domains such as healthcare, there is a need to share privacy-sensitive data among autonomous but cooperating organisations. However, security concerns and compliance to privacy regulations requiring confidentiality of the data renders unrestricted access to organisational data by others undesirable. The challenge is how to guarantee privacy preservations for the owners of the information that are willing to share information with other organisations while keeping some other information secret. Therefore, there is a need for privacy preserving database operations for querying data residing at different parties. To address this challenge, we propose a new computationally efficient framework that enables organisations to share privacy-sensitive data. The proposed framework is able to answer queries without revealing any useful information to the data sources or to the third parties.

Micro-blogging in the workplace

Micro-blogging services such as Twitter, Yammer, Plurk and Google Buzz have generated substantial interest among members of the business community in recent years. Many CEOs, managers and front-line employees have embraced micro-blogs as a tool for interacting with colleagues, employees, customers, suppliers and investors. Micro-blogs are considered a more informal channel than emails and official websites, and thus present a different set of challenges to businesses. As a positional paper, this paper uses a case study of a bogus Twitter account to emphasise security and ethical issues relating to (i) Trust, Accuracy and Authenticity of Information, (ii) Privacy and Confidentiality, and (iii) Scams and Frauds, when micro-blogs are used in the workplace. It also highlights the potential risks businesses are exposed to if employees use micro-blogs irresponsibly. The paper contributes to practice by providing suggestions on managing security and ethical risks associated with micro-blogging in the workplace. It contributes to research by building on existing research in trust and data privacy in electronic communication.

ICT corporate governance : a case study of a not-for-profit community healthcare organisation

Organisations, regardless of sector and size, are increasingly deploying information and communication technology (ICT) to transact with their stakeholders. Whilst on the one hand this offers efficiencies like improved communication and better resource usage through a reduction in duplication, on the other hand it raises issues of responsiveness, trust, privacy and confidentiality, In this paper we report how an Australian not-for-profit community healthcare organisation experienced and responded to the challenges of governance with respect to its ICT. The lessons From the case study are that comprehensive documentation, top management commitment, and appropriate skills to manage tasks and time are crucial when planning to implement such systems.

Using the Internet to research hidden populations of illicit drug users : a review

Aims To review the current research of hidden populations of illicit drugs users using web-based methods and discuss major advantages and disadvantages.

Methods Systematic review of 16 databases, including PubMed, PsycINFO (EBSCOhost), CSA Sociological Abstracts, Expanded Academic ASAP and Google Scholar.

Findings Substances researched were most commonly ‘party/club drugs’ (such as ecstasy) and cannabis. All of the studies reviewed concluded that the internet is a useful tool for reaching hidden populations, but is likely to impose some bias in samples. Advantages include: access to previously under-researched target groups; speed; international applications; increased ease of data entry; and improved confidentiality for respondents. The major disadvantage is a lack of representativeness of samples.

Conclusions Internet research is successful at accessing hidden populations of illicit drugs users, when appropriately targeted and provides unprecedented opportunities for research across a wide range of topics within the addictions field. Findings are unlikely to be generalisable to the general public, but appropriate for describing target populations.

Equal opportunity : dealing with employment discrimination

Experiences with the process of lodging a discrimination complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission - issues surrounding confidentiality clauses in dispute settlement agreements.

Provision of the emergency contraceptive pill without prescription : attitudes and practices of pharmacists in Australia

Background : As 5 years have elapsed since the emergency contraceptive pill (ECP) was made available without prescription in Australia, information was sought about the current attitudes and practices of pharmacists in relation to their increased role in ECP provision.

Study Design : A mail survey was implemented; questionnaires were distributed to 750 pharmacies across Australia during 2008-2009. Descriptive statistics were calculated and multiple logistic regression was used to examine factors associated with declining to dispense ECP.

Results : Response rate was 29%. Most pharmacists used a protocol to guide ECP dispensing (77.3%) and the majority had declined ECP provision (75.1%) in certain circumstances. Many usually counselled where confidentiality could be assured (62.8%), and agreed that it is a pharmacist's role to counsel on regular contraception (81.9%). Factors significantly associated (p≤.05) with dispensing practices included pharmacists' attitudes towards acceptability of advance prescription, their age, gender and pharmacy accessibility.

Conclusions : New information about Australian pharmacists' current attitudes and practices towards ECP dispensing was identified. Pharmacists had stronger, more conservative attitudes than overseas pharmacists; however, the issues that emerged were similar to those reported overseas. To address these, revised training for local pharmacists is recommended.

Above the trust and security in cloud computing : a notion towards innovation

While the nascent Cloud Computing paradigm supported by virtualization has the upward new notion of edges, it lacks proper security and trust mechanisms. Edges are like on demand scalability and infinite resource provisioning as per the `pay-as-you-go' manner in favour of a single information owner (abbreviated as INO from now onwards) to multiple corporate INOs. While outsourcing information to a cloud storage controlled by a cloud service provider (abbreviated as CSP from now onwards) relives an information owner of tackling instantaneous oversight and management needs, a significant issue of retaining the control of that information to the information owner still needs to be solved. This paper perspicaciously delves into the facts of the Cloud Computing security issues and aims to explore and establish a secure channel for the INO to communicate with the CSP while maintaining trust and confidentiality. The objective of the paper is served by analyzing different protocols and proposing the one in commensurate with the requirement of the security property like information or data confidentiality along the line of security in Cloud Computing Environment (CCE). To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to derive a secure protocol by successively eliminating the dangling pitfalls that remain dormant and thereby hamper confidentiality and integrity of information that is worth exchanging between the INO and the CSP. Besides, conceptually, our derived protocol is compared with the SSL from the perspectives of work flow related activities along the line of secure trusted path for information confidentiality.

Editorial : advances in network and system security

Current parallel and distributed networks/systems are facing serious threats from network terrorism and crime, which cause huge financial loss and potential life hazard. As attacking tools are becoming more widely available, more easy-to-use, more sophisticated, and more powerful, more efforts have been made in building more effective, more intelligent, and more adaptive defense systems which are of distributed and networked nature. This special issue focuses on issues related to Network and System Security, such as authentication, access control, availability, integrity, privacy, confidentiality, dependability and sustainability of computer networks and systems.

Mutual authentication protocol for networked RFID systems

In this paper we address the problem of securing networked RFID applications. We develop and present a RFID security protocol that allows mutual authentication between the reader and tag as well as secure communication of tag data. The protocol presented uses a hybrid method to provide strong security while ensuring the resource requirements are low. To this end it employs a mix of simple one way hashing and low-cost bit wise operations. Our protocol ensures the confidentiality and integrity of all data being communicated and allows for reliable mutual authentication between tags and readers. The protocol presented is also resistant to a large number of common attacks.

Attack vector analysis and privacy-preserving social network data publishing

This paper addresses the problem of privacy-preserving data publishing for social network. Research on protecting the privacy of individuals and the confidentiality of data in social network has recently been receiving increasing attention. Privacy is an important issue when one wants to make use of data that involves individuals' sensitive information, especially in a time when data collection is becoming easier and sophisticated data mining techniques are becoming more efficient. In this paper, we discuss various privacy attack vectors on social networks. We present algorithms that sanitize data to make it safe for release while preserving useful information, and discuss ways of analyzing the sanitized data. This study provides a summary of the current state-of-the-art, based on which we expect to see advances in social networks data publishing for years to come.

Wi-Fi security : wireless with confidence

Since the IEEE ratification of the 802.11 standard in 1999, continuous exploits have been discovered compromising the confidentiality, integrity and availability of 802.11 networks. This paper describes the justification for a project to assess the security status of wireless network usage in society. It reviews the status of both commercial and residential approaches to wireless network security in three major Victorian cities, Melbourne, Geelong and Mornington, in Australia. By War Driving these suburbs, actual data was gathered to indicate the security status of wireless networks and give a representation of modern attitudes towards wireless security for the sample population. Preliminary results are presented to demonstrate the extent to which commercial or residential suburbs address wireless security. At this stage in the research further work is required to completely analyse the results. It is anticipated that the results will be useful for providing input into a defence and attack methodology for improving the security of both residential and commercial use of wireless networks.