AstroWeb – A Graphical Representation of an Astronomical WFPDB Database Using a Web-Based Open Source Geographical Information System

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): H.5.2, H.2.8, J.2, H.5.3.

Health Inequalities Target Data Web Tool - Updated to 2003-05

This tool contains the data for the LHO briefing "The London Health Inequalities Forecast: A briefing on inequalities in life expectancy and deaths from cancers, heart disease and stroke in London". The tool enables local areas to monitor their progress towards the national health inequalities targets for life expectancy, mortality from heart disease and stroke, and mortality from cancers.

Digital Preservation and Web Access to the Konkoly Observatory Schmidt Telescope Plate Archive

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.

Heterogeneous data source access for mobile devices

The mediator software architecture design has been developed to provide data integration and retrieval in distributed, heterogeneous environments. Since the initial conceptualization of this architecture, many new technologies have emerged that can facilitate the implementation of this design. The purpose of this thesis was to show that a mediator framework supporting users of mobile devices could be implemented using common software technologies available today. In addition, the prototype was developed with a view to providing a better understanding of what a mediator is and to expose issues that will have to be addressed in full, more robust designs. The prototype developed for this thesis was implemented using various technologies including: Java, XML, and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) among others. SOAP was used to accomplish inter-process communication. In the end, it is expected that more data intensive software applications will be possible in a world with ever-increasing demands for information.

A Semantic Scraping Model for Web Resources - Applying Linked Data to Web Page Screen Scraping

In spite of the increasing presence of Semantic Web Facilities, only a limited amount of the available resources in the Internet provide a semantic access. Recent initiatives such as the emerging Linked Data Web are providing semantic access to available data by porting existing resources to the semantic web using different technologies, such as database-semantic mapping and scraping. Nevertheless, existing scraping solutions are based on ad-hoc solutions complemented with graphical interfaces for speeding up the scraper development. This article proposes a generic framework for web scraping based on semantic technologies. This framework is structured in three levels: scraping services, semantic scraping model and syntactic scraping. The first level provides an interface to generic applications or intelligent agents for gathering information from the web at a high level. The second level defines a semantic RDF model of the scraping process, in order to provide a declarative approach to the scraping task. Finally, the third level provides an implementation of the RDF scraping model for specific technologies. The work has been validated in a scenario that illustrates its application to mashup technologies

Dynamic data retrieval on the World Wide Web

Methods for accessing data on the Web have been the focus of active research over the past few years. In this thesis we propose a method for representing Web sites as data sources. We designed a Data Extractor data retrieval solution that allows us to define queries to Web sites and process resulting data sets. Data Extractor is being integrated into the MSemODB heterogeneous database management system. With its help database queries can be distributed over both local and Web data sources within MSemODB framework. ^ Data Extractor treats Web sites as data sources, controlling query execution and data retrieval. It works as an intermediary between the applications and the sites. Data Extractor utilizes a twofold “custom wrapper” approach for information retrieval. Wrappers for the majority of sites are easily built using a powerful and expressive scripting language, while complex cases are processed using Java-based wrappers that utilize specially designed library of data retrieval, parsing and Web access routines. In addition to wrapper development we thoroughly investigate issues associated with Web site selection, analysis and processing. ^ Data Extractor is designed to act as a data retrieval server, as well as an embedded data retrieval solution. We also use it to create mobile agents that are shipped over the Internet to the client's computer to perform data retrieval on behalf of the user. This approach allows Data Extractor to distribute and scale well. ^ This study confirms feasibility of building custom wrappers for Web sites. This approach provides accuracy of data retrieval, and power and flexibility in handling of complex cases. ^

Dynamic data retrieval on the world wide web

Methods for accessing data on the Web have been the focus of active research over the past few years. In this thesis we propose a method for representing Web sites as data sources. We designed a Data Extractor data retrieval solution that allows us to define queries to Web sites and process resulting data sets. Data Extractor is being integrated into the MSemODB heterogeneous database management system. With its help database queries can be distributed over both local and Web data sources within MSemODB framework. Data Extractor treats Web sites as data sources, controlling query execution and data retrieval. It works as an intermediary between the applications and the sites. Data Extractor utilizes a two-fold "custom wrapper" approach for information retrieval. Wrappers for the majority of sites are easily built using a powerful and expressive scripting language, while complex cases are processed using Java-based wrappers that utilize specially designed library of data retrieval, parsing and Web access routines. In addition to wrapper development we thoroughly investigate issues associated with Web site selection, analysis and processing. Data Extractor is designed to act as a data retrieval server, as well as an embedded data retrieval solution. We also use it to create mobile agents that are shipped over the Internet to the client's computer to perform data retrieval on behalf of the user. This approach allows Data Extractor to distribute and scale well. This study confirms feasibility of building custom wrappers for Web sites. This approach provides accuracy of data retrieval, and power and flexibility in handling of complex cases.

Web-application for gathering, analyzing, and processing health information about allergy data

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Application Platforms for the Internet of Things: Theory, Architecture, Protocols, Data Formats, and Privacy

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next industrial revolution: we will interact naturally with real and virtual devices as a key part of our daily life. This technology shift is expected to be greater than the Web and Mobile combined. As extremely different technologies are needed to build connected devices, the Internet of Things field is a junction between electronics, telecommunications and software engineering. Internet of Things application development happens in silos, often using proprietary and closed communication protocols. There is the common belief that only if we can solve the interoperability problem we can have a real Internet of Things. After a deep analysis of the IoT protocols, we identified a set of primitives for IoT applications. We argue that each IoT protocol can be expressed in term of those primitives, thus solving the interoperability problem at the application protocol level. Moreover, the primitives are network and transport independent and make no assumption in that regard. This dissertation presents our implementation of an IoT platform: the Ponte project. Privacy issues follows the rise of the Internet of Things: it is clear that the IoT must ensure resilience to attacks, data authentication, access control and client privacy. We argue that it is not possible to solve the privacy issue without solving the interoperability problem: enforcing privacy rules implies the need to limit and filter the data delivery process. However, filtering data require knowledge of how the format and the semantics of the data: after an analysis of the possible data formats and representations for the IoT, we identify JSON-LD and the Semantic Web as the best solution for IoT applications. Then, this dissertation present our approach to increase the throughput of filtering semantic data by a factor of ten.

Dashboard configurable para la gestión y administración de una instancia de OpenStack

En este documento está descrito detalladamente el trabajo realizado para completar todos objetivos marcados para este Trabajo de Fin de Grado, que tiene como meta final el desarrollo de un dashboard configurable de gestión y administración para instancias de OpenStack. OpenStack es una plataforma libre y de código abierto utilizada como solución de Infraestructura como Servicio (Infrastructure as a Service, IaaS) en clouds tanto públicos, que ofrecen sus servicios cobrando el tiempo de uso o los recursos utilizados, como privados para su utilización exclusiva en el entorno de una empresa. El proyecto OpenStack se inició como una colaboración entre la NASA y RackSpace, y a día de hoy es mantenido por las empresas más potentes del sector tecnológico a través de la Fundación OpenStack. La plataforma OpenStack permite el acceso a sus servicios a través de una Interfaz de Linea de Comandos (Command Line Interface, CLI), una API RESTful y una interfaz web en forma de dashboard. Esta última es ofrecida a través del servicio Horizon. Este servicio provee de una interfaz gráfica para acceder, gestionar y automatizar servicios basados en cloud. El dashboard de Horizon presente algunos problemas como que: solo admite opciones de configuración mediante código Python, lo que hace que el usuario no tenga ninguna capacidad de configuración y que el administrador esté obligado a interactuar directamente con el código. no tiene soporte para múltiples regiones que permitan que un usuario pueda distribuir sus recursos por distintos centros de datos en diversas localizaciones como más le convenga. El presente Trabajo de Fin de Grado, que es la fase inicial del proyecto FI-Dash, pretende solucionar estos problemas mediante el desarrollo de un catálogo de widget de la plataformaWireCloud que permitirán al usuario tener todas las funcionalidades ofrecidas por Horizon a la vez que le ofrecen capacidades de configuración y añaden funcionalidades no presentes en Horizon como el soporte de múltiples regiones. Como paso previo al desarrollo del catálogo de widgets se ha llevado a cabo un estudio de las tecnologías y servicios ofrecidos por OpenStack, así como de las herramientas que pudieran ser necesarias para la realización del trabajo. El proceso de desarrollo ha sido dividido en distintas fases de acuerdo con los distintos componentes que forman parte del dashboard cada uno con una funcion de gestion sobre un tipo de recurso distinto. Las otras fases del desarrollo han sido la integración completa del dashboard en la plataforma WireCloud y el diseño de una interfaz gráfica usable y atractiva.---ABSTRACT---Throughout this document it is described the work performed in order to achieve all of the objectives set for this Final Project, which has as its main goal the development of a configurable dashboard for managing and administrating OpenStack instances. OpenStack is a free and open source platform used as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for both public clouds, which offer their services through payments on time or resources used, and private clouds for use only in the company’s environment. The OpenStack project started as a collaboration between NASA and Rackspace, and nowadays is maintained by the most powerful companies in the technology sector through the OpenStack Foundation. The OpenStack project provides access to its services through a Command Line Interface (CLI), a RESTful API and a web interface as dashboard. The latter is offered through a service called Horizon. This service provides a graphical interface to access, manage and automate cloud-based services. Horizon’s dashboard presents some problems such as: Only supports configuration options using Python code, which grants the user no configuration capabilities and forces the administrator to interact directly. No support for multiple regions that allow a user to allocate his resources by different data centers in different locations at his convenience. This Final Project, which is the initial stage of the FI-Dash project, aims to solve these problems by developing a catalog of widgets for the WireCloud platform that will allow the user to have all the features offered by Horizon while offering configuration capabilities and additional features not present in Horizon such as support for multiple regions. As a prelude to the development of the widget catalog, a study of technologies and services offered by OpenStack as well as tools that may be necessary to carry out the work has been conducted. The development process has been split in phases matching the different components that are part of the dashboard, having each one of them a function of management of one kind of resource. The other development phases have been the achieving of full integration with WireCloud and the design of a graphical interface that is both usable and atractive.

The Wide-Field Plate Database: Development and Access via Internet

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.

Data partitioning and replication management in distributed geographic information system (GIS) database

This research presents several components encompassing the scope of the objective of Data Partitioning and Replication Management in Distributed GIS Database. Modern Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases are often large and complicated. Therefore data partitioning and replication management problems need to be addresses in development of an efficient and scalable solution. ^ Part of the research is to study the patterns of geographical raster data processing and to propose the algorithms to improve availability of such data. These algorithms and approaches are targeting granularity of geographic data objects as well as data partitioning in geographic databases to achieve high data availability and Quality of Service(QoS) considering distributed data delivery and processing. To achieve this goal a dynamic, real-time approach for mosaicking digital images of different temporal and spatial characteristics into tiles is proposed. This dynamic approach reuses digital images upon demand and generates mosaicked tiles only for the required region according to user's requirements such as resolution, temporal range, and target bands to reduce redundancy in storage and to utilize available computing and storage resources more efficiently. ^ Another part of the research pursued methods for efficient acquiring of GIS data from external heterogeneous databases and Web services as well as end-user GIS data delivery enhancements, automation and 3D virtual reality presentation. ^ There are vast numbers of computing, network, and storage resources idling or not fully utilized available on the Internet. Proposed "Crawling Distributed Operating System "(CDOS) approach employs such resources and creates benefits for the hosts that lend their CPU, network, and storage resources to be used in GIS database context. ^ The results of this dissertation demonstrate effective ways to develop a highly scalable GIS database. The approach developed in this dissertation has resulted in creation of TerraFly GIS database that is used by US government, researchers, and general public to facilitate Web access to remotely-sensed imagery and GIS vector information. ^

A PHR system with policy-based fine-grained access control and revocation mechanism

Collaborative sharing of information is becoming much more needed technique to achieve complex goals in today's fast-paced tech-dominant world. Personal Health Record (PHR) system has become a popular research area for sharing patients informa- tion very quickly among health professionals. PHR systems store and process sensitive information, which should have proper security mechanisms to protect patients' private data. Thus, access control mechanisms of the PHR should be well-defined. Secondly, PHRs should be stored in encrypted form. Cryptographic schemes offering a more suitable solution for enforcing access policies based on user attributes are needed for this purpose. Attribute-based encryption can resolve these problems, we propose a patient-centric framework that protects PHRs against untrusted service providers and malicious users. In this framework, we have used Ciphertext Policy Attribute Based Encryption scheme as an efficient cryptographic technique, enhancing security and privacy of the system, as well as enabling access revocation. Patients can encrypt their PHRs and store them on untrusted storage servers. They also maintain full control over access to their PHR data by assigning attribute-based access control to selected data users, and revoking unauthorized users instantly. In order to evaluate our system, we implemented CP-ABE library and web services as part of our framework. We also developed an android application based on the framework that allows users to register into the system, encrypt their PHR data and upload to the server, and at the same time authorized users can download PHR data and decrypt it. Finally, we present experimental results and performance analysis. It shows that the deployment of the proposed system would be practical and can be applied into practice.

European institutions at your fingertips: EUROPA gateway tools for dissemination and access to information

This paper intends to present the legal background that support dissemination and access to documents from European institutions, namely the Parliament, the Council and the European Commission. Currently, this legal framework is accomplished with a set of Internet tools that are analyzed regarding official documents types and options searches available. Some statistical data on access to European information published in annual reports from the institutions are also evaluated. The relationship between shadow and light in transparency to access administrative documents and marketing issues of a political communication are underlined. Neo-institutional approach, reputational concept in public organizations and systemic perspective are used as theoretical background.