Privacy Preserving in Smart Cities Using Various Computing Technologies

IoT has influenced our daily lives through various applications. The high possibility of sensing and publishing sensitive data in the smart environment leads to significant issues: (1) privacy-preserving and (2) real-time services. Privacy is a complex and a subjective notion as its understanding and perception differ among individuals, hence the observation that current studies lack addressing these challenges. This chapter proposes a new privacy-preserving method for IoT devices in the smart city by leveraging ontology, a data model, at the edge of the network. Based on the simulation results using Protege and Visual Studio on a synthetic dataset, the authors find that the solution provides privacy at real-time while addressing heterogeneity issue so that many IoT devices can afford it. Thus, the proposed solution can be widely used for smart cities.

One Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Dental Medical Facilities in Germany: A Questionnaire-Based Analysis

(1) Background: The COVID-19 pandemic forced healthcare workers to adapt to challenges in both patient care and self-protection. Dental practitioners were confronted with a potentially high possibility of infection transmission due to aerosol-generating procedures. This study aims to present data on healthcare worker (HCW) screening, infection status of HCWs, pre-interventional testing, the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the economic impact of the pandemic in dental facilities. (2) Methods: Dental facilities were surveyed nationwide using an online questionnaire. The acquisition of participants took place in cooperation with the German Society for Dentistry, Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine. (3) Results: A total of 1094 private practices participated. Of these, 39.1% treated fewer than 600 patients per quarter and 59.9% treated over 600 patients per quarter. Pre-interventional testing was rarely performed in either small (6.6%) or large practices (6.0%). Large practices had a significantly higher incidence of at least one SARS-CoV-2-positive HCW than small practices (26.2% vs.14.4%, p < 0.01). The main source of infection in small practices was the private environment, and this was even more significant in large practices (81.8% vs. 89.7%, p < 0.01). The procedure count either remained stable (34.0% of small practices vs. 46.2% of large practices) or decreased by up to 50% (52.6% of small practices vs. 44.4% of large practices). Revenue remained stable (24.8% of small practices vs. 34.2% of large practices) or decreased by up to 50% (64.5% of small practices vs. 55.3% of large practices, p = 0.03). Overall, employee numbers remained stable (75.5% of small practices vs. 76.8% of large practices). A vaccination readiness of 60–100% was shown in 60.5% (n = 405) of large practices and 59.9% (n = 251) of small practices. (4) Conclusion: Pre-interventional testing in dental practices should be increased further. Economic challenges affected small practices as well as large practices. Overall, a steady employee count could be maintained. Vaccination readiness is high in dental practices, although with some room for improvement.

Emerging Concept of Dupuytren’s Disease

Dupuytren’s disease is a disorder of fibroproliferative condition causing thickened and contracted of the palmar fascia. The pathophysiology behind this disease is complex and multifactorial. Some major factors are genetic predisposition, inflammatory response, trauma, comorbidities, and environmental factors. The treatment options for Dupuytren’s disease are divided into non-surgical and surgical management. Needle fasciotomy and fasciectomy are some of the most common surgical procedures chosen. Novel non-surgical treatment option as the recent advance in the treatment of the disease is the injection of collagenase Clostridium histolyticum (CCH). One of the pitfalls of Dupuytren’s management is the high possibility of the disease’s recurrence along with some other post-intervention complications. Rehabilitation following the interventions is needed to manage the maximum range of motion and curtail the inflammatory response after the cord disruption. Keywords: Dupuytren’s disease, clostridium histolyticum, fasciectomy.

AN INHERENTLY SAFER LAYOUT DESIGN FOR THE LIQUEFACTION PROCESS OF AN FLNG PLANT

Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facilities have limited space available and a high possibility of accidents occurring. The severity of consequences requires an inherently safer layout design. Scope of the liquefaction process requires to determine the size of utilities, operating costs, the deck area and the number of LNG trains. The layout of the liquefaction process plays a key role in defining operational and economical safety of the whole FLNG plant. The present study focuses on developing a novel methodology to design an inherently and optimally safer layout for the generic multi-deck liquefaction process of an FLNG plant. The integrated inherent safety principle is applied at the early phases of the layout design considering inherent safety and cost indices in three different layout options, and for the final design the most optimal option was selected. The proven indexing approach quantified the associated risks in all units. Safety measures were undertaken to eliminate or reduce the risk to an acceptable level. The results showed that the economic losses due to domino effects were limited by an improved layout design and passive control strategies. This study only dealt with evaluation and analysis of critical units of the plant due to a lack of detailed information at the early phase of the design. However, the proposed method plays a positive role in obtaining an inherently safer layout design of any multi-deck plants.

The Compatibility between the Takeover Process in Conditional Automated Driving and the Current Geometric Design of the Deceleration Lane in Highway

In recent years, the takeover process of conditional automated driving has attached a great deal of attention. However, most of the existing research has focused on the effects of human-machine interactions or driver-related features (e.g., non-driving-related tasks), while there is little knowledge about the compatibility between the takeover process and existing road geometric design. As there is a high possibility that drivers must take over the vehicle before they diverge from the mainline of the highway, this explanatory study aimed to examine the compatibility between the takeover process and the current deceleration lane geometric design. The distribution range of existing deceleration lanes’ lengths were obtained through a geo-based survey. Nine scenarios were recreated in the driving simulator which were designed with various deceleration lane lengths and driving modes (different takeover time budgets and manual driving as the baseline group). A total of 31 participants were recruited to take part in the experiment, their gaze behaviors were recorded simultaneously. Results showed that, compared with manual driving, both drivers’ horizontal and vertical gaze dispersion increased, while drivers adopted higher deceleration in the mainline and merged into the deceleration lane later under takeover conditions. Moreover, a longer deceleration lane could benefit vehicle control. However, its marginal effect was reduced with the increase of deceleration lane length. These findings can help automated vehicle manufacturers design dedicated takeover schemes for different deceleration lane lengths.

AI Model for Predicting Legal Judgments to Improve Accuracy and Explainability of Online Privacy Invasion Cases

Since there are growing concerns regarding online privacy, firms may have the risk of being involved in various privacy infringement cases resulting in legal causations. If firms are aware of consequences from possible cases of invasion of online privacy, they can more actively prevent future online privacy infringements. Thus, this study attempts to predict the probability of judgment types caused by various invasions within US judicial cases that are related to online privacy invasions. Since legal judgment results are significantly influenced by societal factors and technological development, this study tries to identify a model that can accurately predict legal judgment with explainability. To archive the study objective, it compares the prediction performance by applying five types of classification algorithms (LDA, NNET, CART, SVM, and random forest) of machine learning. We also examined the relationship between privacy infringement factors and adjudications by applying network text analysis. The results indicate that firms could have a high possibility of both civil and criminal law responsibilities if they distributed malware or spyware, intentionally or non-intentionally, to collect unauthorized data. It addresses the needs of reflecting both quantitative and qualitative approach for establishing automatic legal systems for improving its accuracy based on the socio-technical perspective.

Un-‘Egg’-Plored: Characterisation of Embryonation in the Whipworm Model Organism Trichuris muris

Trichuris muris, is the murine parasite and widely deployed model for the human whipworm Trichuris trichiura, a parasite that infects around 500 million people globally. Trichuriasis is a classical disease of poverty with a cycle of re-infection due to the continual exposure of humans, particularly children, to infective eggs, which contaminate the soil in endemic areas. Indeed, modelling studies of trichuriasis have demonstrated that the low efficacy rate of current anthelmintics combined with the high possibility of re-infection from the reservoir of infective eggs within the environment, mean that the elimination of morbidity due to trichuriasis is unlikely to occur. Despite the importance of the infective egg stage in the perpetuation of infections, understanding the biology of the Trichuris ova has been neglected for decades. Here we perform experiments to assess the impact of temperature on the embryonation process of T. muris eggs and describe in detail the stages of larval development within these eggs. In keeping with the early works performed in the early 1900s, we show that the embryonation of T. muris is accelerated by an elevation in temperature, up to 37°C above which eggs do not fully develop and become degenerate. We extend these data to provide a detailed description of T. muris egg development with clear images depicting the various stages of development. To the best of our knowledge we have, for the first time, described the presence of birefringent granules within egg-stage larvae, as well as providing a qualitative and quantitative description of a motile larval stage prior to quiescence within the egg. These experiments are the first step towards a better understanding of the basic biology which underlies the process of egg embryonation. With the threat of elevation in global temperatures, the accelerated embryonation rate we observe at higher temperatures may have important consequences for parasite transmission rates and prospective modelling studies. In addition, a deeper understanding of the Trichuris ova may allow the development of novel control strategies targeting the egg stage of Trichuris in the environment as an adjunct to MDA.

Effect of amended soil using different fertilizer applications on phenology of Cassava in Edo State South-South Nigeria

Three experimental fertilization treatments of fertigation (FERT), Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium (NPK), and poultry organic fertilizer (ORG) were applied on a cassava (TMS 30573) cultivation at the rate 300 kg/ha for NPK and ORG, while fertigation was injected at 1.5 litres/minutes. The results were compared with the control and unfertilized field using the same cassava cultivar. The results from the four treatments indicated that the cassava phenological development significantly responded to fertilizer applications. At 183-day after planting (DAP), the plant height under FERT was higher than NPK, OGR and CON by 19.0 cm, 60 cm and 80 cm. Conversely, under ORG, the leaf emergency (le) steady increased to 42 leaves at 183 DAP, whereas NPK reached peak (le) at 161 DAP and dropped to 41 at 183 DAP. Also, under the FERT and CON, le dropped to 38 and 33 leaves at 183 DAP. The rate of leaf death (ld) is significant at P<0.001 under fertigation, NPK and ORG, while insignificant under control treatment. Projected cassava yield per hectare estimated from phenological and morphological development indicated that ORG showed high possibility of producing cassava yield increase of 2.5 tons/hectare over FERT, 3.2 tons/hectare, 4.8 tons/hectare under NPK and CON respectively.

Understanding the relationship among the determinants of rice cropping index in Deli Serdang Regency

The cropping index of rice is one of determining factors to increase rice production. In certain areas of Deli Serdang Regency, the rice crop has high possibility of being sowed three times annually. Unfortunately, some parts of this regency still have a low cropping index, then affecting the stagnant production. Hence, this study was conducted to identify the determinant variables and explain their relationship with rice cropping index and also to construct the strategic actions to increase the rice cropping index. This study was conducted in six districts with 180 total respondents, using household-based survey method. The descriptive statistics analysis and Pearson correlation analysis were performed using the SPSS tool to achieve the objectives. The result shows that frequency of flood occurrence on riceland, productivity, total income from agricultural sector, number of household member, age, education level, distance of irrigation channel to the riceland and the irrigation status are the significant determinants of rice cropping index. In addition, some strategic actions that have to introduced to the local government and the farmers are sowing the adaptive varieties which is tolerant on flooding condition; using the precise planting calendar to find the exact schedule for planting time; planting the certified variety that gives high productivity; increasing the capacity building, especially the cultivation skill, through following the technical guidance; cconstructing the irrigation system and repairing/maintaining the irrigation infrastructures; and harvesting the water to support the sustainable water for riceland.

Social impact of extracurricular activities in terms of the universality of the benefits involved

In the field of educational management, extracurricular activities play a very important role. In most schools, pupils come from different backgrounds and in the academic environment they form a new, special community. And extra-curricular activities help the pupils to integrate into the team more easily. Creating specific skills in those activities, especially coping quickly with potential challenges, is important for pupils who feel more relaxed in such an informal environment than during class. And the high possibility of diversification that extracurricular activities entails has increased potential to bring benefits throughout the lives of current pupils. The topicality of the research derives from the fact that high school pupils must be prepared to direct their own learning and development, and extracurricular activities contribute significantly to this process. Based on this reality, the author aimed to elucidate the essence of extracurricular activities and analyze the benefits that their practice brings to the students involved, from a short and long-term perspective