Data Protection Impact Assessment: A Protection Tool for Migrants Using ICT Solutions

Smart devices have become ubiquitous in everyday life, and it is commonplace that migrants are among the users of connected tools. With the realization that migrants rely on connectivity for multiple purposes, including to access information and services, many initiatives started working on developing ICT tools to assist migrants to integrate into their new society. Technological tools, however, come with inherent risks, many of which are linked to the processing of personal data of their users. This is especially true for migrants, who are often vulnerable due to their migration status, which is not always secure in the host country. To mitigate these risks, we argue that an expanded data protection impact assessment, analyzing not only the impacts related to data protection, but also to the specific situation of migrants, should be conducted at the outset of any technology development project to influence the development of safe and reliable ICT tools for this target population. A practical example of the application of such an assessment is provided, based on the authors’ experience as legal advisors in the REBUILD project, which is one of the current initiatives in the EU aiming to develop ICT tools for migrant integration.

Accelerated Development of Subsurface Safety Valve Technologies

Described is a methodology for accelerating the development of innovative and high-risk technologies, specifically, subsurface safety valve technologies. Focus is on methods of mitigating technical and commercial risks that can delay or prevent successful development of new technologies. Example risk assessment and risk mitigation strategies are provided from a recent subsurface safety valve technology development project. Mitigation strategies include fixture level testing, design changes, and deep client collaboration. In the example project, it is estimated that the total development time was reduced by as much as 50% by implementing these strategies. While a subsurface safety valve development is used in this example, it is believed that many strategies are applicable to other domains.

A risk assessment method based on Pythagorean fuzzy set and artificial-neuron-like evaluation node

Taking concepts from supply management, we developed a specification-assessment-compliance approach to obtain a transparent multi-criteria decision-making method. We designed an artificial-neuron-like node that allows the implementation of networks to represent hierarchies of evaluation criteria. A new graphical model based on functions in the unit segment uses the concept of Pythagorean fuzzy set (PFS). The specification PFSs’ entropies modulate the widths of one-sided triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs) with positive slopes that become the evaluation nodes’ activation functions. All the specifications refer to the same point to facilitate the evaluation and ensure coherence. One-sided TFNs with negative slopes biunivocally represent the assessment PFSs at the input layer of the network. A risk case study on the options for the outsourcing of an information technology development project shows the proposed method’s implementation. We compare the results with those of the application of two other previous methods.

Estimation of corn harvest date in South Korea based on the accumulated temperature

<p>This study was estimated harvest date of corn in South Korea based on the temperature index called the accumulated temperature. The accumulated temperature was calculated using observed daily mean temperature. We assumed a unified seeding date, 5 April, across the South Korea. The daily mean temperatures from 61 weather stations provided by the Korean Meteorological Administration were obtained for the period 2009-2018 (10 years). We used 1,650℃ as the criterion of the accumulated temperature to identify harvest date of corn for early-cultivated variety. The accumulated temperature over the most areas generally meted the criterion (1,650℃) in early July. In case of 2018, 66% area of Gang-won province, major corn producer, become suitable to harvest corn in July, peaking in the middle July (51%). The harvest date has been accelerating due to increase in daily mean temperature during the recent 10 years. This study infers that changes in farming activities are needed through reflecting the environmental change.        </p><p> </p><p>Acknowledgements</p><p>: This study was carried out with the support of “Research Program for Agricultural Science & Technology Development (Project No. PJ014882)”, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.</p><p> </p>

Streamlining cross-organisation product design in aeronautics

Aircraft development programmes generally involve collaboration in engineering between different organisations, in order to develop innovative products efficiently, to involve necessary skills from the supply chain, and to spread risks and costs among the partners. The size and complexity of the programmes, the market demands and the contexts of competition all require the collaboration to be effective and efficient. Advances in information technology provide new capabilities to support collaborative design but a step change is needed to harness and coordinate this support to be effective and efficient. The extended enterprises in which the collaborative engineering activities take place span the partner organisations. Engineers wishing to cooperate are however facing security constraints. For example, technical security measures such as firewalls and proxy servers hamper smooth exchange of engineering data and seamless execution of collaborative workflows. The restrictions assist organisations in protecting their assets and in remaining compliant with legislation and regulations. From a programme technical point of view, effective and efficient collaboration in this world full of security and the resulting connectivity constraints is a major challenge. This paper describes the usefulness, necessity and challenges of collaboration between multi-disciplinary specialists in aerospace engineering. It presents the ‘Brics’ technology that supports the realisation of cross-organisation collaborative workflows. The technology supports aircraft manufacturers and their supply chains in facing the challenges and in performing analyses of innovative aircraft designs collaboratively. This technology has emerged from past research projects, and has been further developed and successfully demonstrated in the Thermal Overall Integrated Conception of Aircraft project, a research and technology development project carried out in the Seventh Framework Programme funded by the European Union. The developed technology is illustrated in the context of a multi-partner analysis and optimisation study, which has been conducted as part of a pylon design that is subject to thermal constraints.