The selective adaptation of the alcoholics anonymous program by Gamblers Anonymous.

Science.gov (United States)

Browne, B R

1991-09-01

This paper is largely based on a year long observation study of Gamblers Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in northern California. The paper argues, contrary to popular assumption, that Gamblers Anonymous is significantly different from Alcoholics Anonymous. Differences, in members' consciousness for example, are discussed. The paper contends that although there is some12 step consciousness in G.A., the dominant consciousness ispage 17 consciousness. The significant differences are attributed to the selective adaptation of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Several consequences of these differences, such as the central role of a language of the self in A.A. and not in G.A., are highlighted.

Anonymous steps: gender and Gamblers Anonymous

OpenAIRE

Rogers, Jim

2015-01-01

The biggest source of help for problem gamblers remains gamblers anonymous (GA) in terms of accessibility and availability. GA has traditionally been very much a male preserve. This paper reports on a literature review of Gamblers Anonymous together with data from observations of a contemporary open GA meeting over a one year period. Whilst some studies from North America suggest a changing culture and gender balance within GA programmes observations from the North of England, supported b...

Pattern-Guided k-Anonymity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rolf Niedermeier

2013-10-01

Full Text Available We suggest a user-oriented approach to combinatorial data anonymization. A data matrix is called k-anonymous if every row appears at least k times—the goal of the NP-hard k-ANONYMITY problem then is to make a given matrix k-anonymous by suppressing (blanking out as few entries as possible. Building on previous work and coping with corresponding deficiencies, we describe an enhanced k-anonymization problem called PATTERN-GUIDED k-ANONYMITY, where the users specify in which combinations suppressions may occur. In this way, the user of the anonymized data can express the differing importance of various data features. We show that PATTERN-GUIDED k-ANONYMITY is NP-hard. We complement this by a fixed-parameter tractability result based on a “data-driven parameterization” and, based on this, develop an exact integer linear program (ILP-based solution method, as well as a simple, but very effective, greedy heuristic. Experiments on several real-world datasets show that our heuristic easily matches up to the established “Mondrian” algorithm for k-ANONYMITY in terms of the quality of the anonymization and outperforms it in terms of running time.

Purpose-restricted Anonymous Mobile Communications Using Anonymous Signatures in Online Credential Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fathi, Hanane; Shin, SeongHan; Kobara, Kazukuni

2010-01-01

To avoid the risk of long-term storage of secrets on a portable device, an online credential system supports the roaming user in retrieving securely at various locations his private key and other material to generate anonymous signatures. The protocol proposed here allows a roaming mobile user...... to access anonymously services such as whistle blowing and net-counselling. Our approach: (1) allows a mobile user, remembering a short password, to anonymously and securely retrieve the credentials necessary for his anonymous communication without assuming a pre-established anonymous channel...

Data anonymization patent landscape

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mirjana Pejić Bach

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The omnipresent, unstoppable increase in digital data has led to a greater understanding of the importance of data privacy. Different approaches are used to implement data privacy. The goal of this paper is to develop a data anonymization patent landscape, by determining the following: (i the trend in data anonymization patenting, (ii the type of technical content protected in data anonymization, (iii the organizations and countries most active in patenting data anonymization know-how; and (iv the topics emerging most often in patent titles. Patents from the PatSeer database relating to data anonymization from 2001 to 2015 were analyzed. We used the longitudinal approach in combination with text mining techniques to develop a data anonymization patent landscape. The results indicated the following. The number of single patent families is growing with a high increase after 2010, thus indicating a positive trend in the area of patenting data anonymization solutions. The majority of patenting activities relate to the G Physics section. Organizations from the USA and Japan assigned the majority of patents related to data anonymization. The results of text mining indicate that the most often used word in titles of data anonymization patents are “anonym*, “method”, “data” and “system”. Several additional words that indicated the most frequent topics related to data anonymization were: “equipment”, “software”, “protection”, “identification”, or “encryption”, and specific topics such as “community”, “medical”, or “service”.

On Backward-Style Anonymity Verification

Science.gov (United States)

Kawabe, Yoshinobu; Mano, Ken; Sakurada, Hideki; Tsukada, Yasuyuki

Many Internet services and protocols should guarantee anonymity; for example, an electronic voting system should guarantee to prevent the disclosure of who voted for which candidate. To prove trace anonymity, which is an extension of the formulation of anonymity by Schneider and Sidiropoulos, this paper presents an inductive method based on backward anonymous simulations. We show that the existence of an image-finite backward anonymous simulation implies trace anonymity. We also demonstrate the anonymity verification of an e-voting protocol (the FOO protocol) with our backward anonymous simulation technique. When proving the trace anonymity, this paper employs a computer-assisted verification tool based on a theorem prover.

Estimation of Anonymous Email Network Characteristics through Statistical Disclosure Attacks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Javier Portela

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Social network analysis aims to obtain relational data from social systems to identify leaders, roles, and communities in order to model profiles or predict a specific behavior in users’ network. Preserving anonymity in social networks is a subject of major concern. Anonymity can be compromised by disclosing senders’ or receivers’ identity, message content, or sender-receiver relationships. Under strongly incomplete information, a statistical disclosure attack is used to estimate the network and node characteristics such as centrality and clustering measures, degree distribution, and small-world-ness. A database of email networks in 29 university faculties is used to study the method. A research on the small-world-ness and Power law characteristics of these email networks is also developed, helping to understand the behavior of small email networks.

Estimation of Anonymous Email Network Characteristics through Statistical Disclosure Attacks

Science.gov (United States)

Portela, Javier; García Villalba, Luis Javier; Silva Trujillo, Alejandra Guadalupe; Sandoval Orozco, Ana Lucila; Kim, Tai-Hoon

2016-01-01

Social network analysis aims to obtain relational data from social systems to identify leaders, roles, and communities in order to model profiles or predict a specific behavior in users’ network. Preserving anonymity in social networks is a subject of major concern. Anonymity can be compromised by disclosing senders’ or receivers’ identity, message content, or sender-receiver relationships. Under strongly incomplete information, a statistical disclosure attack is used to estimate the network and node characteristics such as centrality and clustering measures, degree distribution, and small-world-ness. A database of email networks in 29 university faculties is used to study the method. A research on the small-world-ness and Power law characteristics of these email networks is also developed, helping to understand the behavior of small email networks. PMID:27809275

Quantum anonymous voting with anonymity check

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Horoshko, Dmitri; Kilin, Sergei

2011-01-01

We propose a new protocol for quantum anonymous voting having serious advantages over the existing protocols: it protects both the voters from a curious tallyman and all the participants from a dishonest voter in unconditional way. The central idea of the protocol is that the ballots are given back to the voters after the voting process, which gives a possibility for two voters to check the anonymity of the vote counting process by preparing a special entangled state of two ballots. Any attempt of cheating from the side of the tallyman results in destroying the entanglement, which can be detected by the voters.

Predictors of anonymous cyber aggression: the role of adolescents' beliefs about anonymity, aggression, and the permanency of digital content.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Michelle F

2014-07-01

Little attention has been given to whether adolescents' beliefs about anonymity and their normative beliefs about cyber aggression jointly increase their perpetration of cyber aggression. To this end, the present longitudinal study examined the moderating influence of these variables on the relationships among adolescents' attitudes toward the permanency of digital content, confidence with not getting caught, and anonymous cyber aggression (ACA) assessed 1 year later (Time 2). These associations were examined among 274 7th and 8th graders and through five technologies, including social networking sites (SNS), e-mail, instant messenger (IM), mobile phones, and chatrooms. Findings indicated that increases in Time 2 ACA and attitudes toward the permanency of digital content were more strongly related when adolescents reported greater confidence with not getting caught and higher normative beliefs concerning cyber aggression through SNS and mobile phones. In addition, higher levels of attitudes toward the permanency of digital content, confidence with not getting caught, beliefs about anonymity, and normative beliefs regarding cyber aggression were related to greater Time 2 ACA through e-mail, IM, and chatrooms. All findings are discussed in the context of adolescents' positive attitudes toward ACA, and an appeal for additional research is made to understand more about anonymity in cyberspace.

Culture or anonymity? Differences in proposer behaviour in Korea and Germany.

Science.gov (United States)

Horak, Sven

2015-10-01

This study explores the proposer behaviour in an ultimatum game (UG) frame under anonymous and non-anonymous conditions among a Korean and German subject pool (n = 590) in comparison. Whereas the anonymous condition is represented by the standard UG, the non-anonymous condition integrates an aggregate of the Korean cultural context variables university affiliation, regional origin and seniority. The latter, a classic Confucian context variable, is measured by age differentials. The former two are impactful components of so-called Yongo networks, a unique Korean informal institution identical to Chinese Guanxi ties. Yongo networks, yet underrepresented in research, are said to be a central context variable to explain Korean social ties and decision-making behaviour. We observe significant differences between the offer behaviours of Korean and German subjects when exposing selected cultural variables. We argue that the behavioural differences observed are in fact due to culture not anonymity. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science.

Anonymously Productive and Socially Engaged While Learning at Work

Science.gov (United States)

Magni, Luca

2016-01-01

Many concurrent variables appear to influence people when they interact anonymously, either face-to-face (F2F) or in computer-mediated communications (CMC).This paper presents the results of a small exploratory research, conducted in a medical company in Italy, to investigate how the use of pseudonyms influences CMC behaviours. The study involved…

How to Bootstrap Anonymous Communication

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jakobsen, Sune K.; Orlandi, Claudio

2015-01-01

formal study in this direction. To solve this problem, we introduce the concept of anonymous steganography: think of a leaker Lea who wants to leak a large document to Joe the journalist. Using anonymous steganography Lea can embed this document in innocent looking communication on some popular website...... anonymous steganography, { A construction showing that anonymous steganography is possible (which uses recent results in circuits obfuscation), { A lower bound on the number of bits which are needed to bootstrap anonymous communication....

How to Bootstrap Anonymous Communication

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jakobsen, Sune K.; Orlandi, Claudio

2015-01-01

formal study in this direction. To solve this problem, we introduce the concept of anonymous steganography: think of a leaker Lea who wants to leak a large document to Joe the journalist. Using anonymous steganography Lea can embed this document in innocent looking communication on some popular website...... defining anonymous steganography, - A construction showing that anonymous steganography is possible (which uses recent results in circuits obfuscation), - A lower bound on the number of bits which are needed to bootstrap anonymous communication....

Self-tallying quantum anonymous voting

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Qingle; Yu, Chaohua; Gao, Fei; Qi, Haoyu; Wen, Qiaoyan

2016-08-01

Anonymous voting is a voting method of hiding the link between a vote and a voter, the context of which ranges from governmental elections to decision making in small groups like councils and companies. In this paper, we propose a quantum anonymous voting protocol assisted by two kinds of entangled quantum states. Particularly, we provide a mechanism of opening and permuting the ordered votes of all the voters in an anonymous manner; any party who is interested in the voting results can acquire a permutation copy and then obtains the voting result through a simple calculation. Unlike all previous quantum works on anonymous voting, our quantum anonymous protocol possesses the properties of privacy, self-tallying, nonreusability, verifiability, and fairness at the same time. In addition, we demonstrate that the entanglement of the quantum states used in our protocol makes an attack from an outside eavesdropper and inside dishonest voters impossible. We also generalize our protocol to execute the task of anonymous multiparty computation, such as anonymous broadcast and anonymous ranking.

Visibility and anonymity effects on attraction and group cohesiveness

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lea, Martin; Spears, Russell; Watt, Susan E.

2007-01-01

This study investigated attraction and group cohesiveness under different visibility and anonymity conditions for social categories that differed in their capacity to be visually cued. Using computer-mediated communication in 36 mixed gender (visually cued category) and nationality (non-visually

The influence of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Soowon Park

Full Text Available Peer influence on students' maladaptive behaviors has been well documented; however, the influence on positive development is less acknowledged.The purpose of this study was to examine anonymous peer influence on college students' prosocial behavior, specifically behavior for the improvement of society (i.e., donating money or participating in social campaigns via an experimental approach. The effects of indirect peer influence (IP and direct peer influence (DP on college students' prosocial behavior were examined.A total of 125 college students participated in an online survey and laboratory experiment. Self-reported helping behavior, social concern goals, and empathy were measured by the online survey. In the laboratory experiments, reading of a prosocial paragraph (IP and confederates' prosocial behavior (DP were manipulated. Participation in a signature campaign and money donation for illness were observed. Furthermore, 19 participants among those who donated were asked about their reasons for participating in such prosocial behavior.Prosocial behavior of anonymous peers (confederates exerts a profound influence on college students' participation in a signature campaign and money donation, whereas the reading of a prosocial paragraph has no effect. Furthermore, no participants reported peer influence as a reason for engaging in prosocial behavior.This finding supports and extends recent research examining the positive impacts of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is not only a foundational and consistent aspect of personality, as previous studies report, but is also highly malleable and unstable in response to immediate situations.

The influence of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Jongho

2017-01-01

Background Peer influence on students’ maladaptive behaviors has been well documented; however, the influence on positive development is less acknowledged. Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine anonymous peer influence on college students’ prosocial behavior, specifically behavior for the improvement of society (i.e., donating money or participating in social campaigns) via an experimental approach. The effects of indirect peer influence (IP) and direct peer influence (DP) on college students’ prosocial behavior were examined. Methods A total of 125 college students participated in an online survey and laboratory experiment. Self-reported helping behavior, social concern goals, and empathy were measured by the online survey. In the laboratory experiments, reading of a prosocial paragraph (IP) and confederates’ prosocial behavior (DP) were manipulated. Participation in a signature campaign and money donation for illness were observed. Furthermore, 19 participants among those who donated were asked about their reasons for participating in such prosocial behavior. Results Prosocial behavior of anonymous peers (confederates) exerts a profound influence on college students’ participation in a signature campaign and money donation, whereas the reading of a prosocial paragraph has no effect. Furthermore, no participants reported peer influence as a reason for engaging in prosocial behavior. Conclusion This finding supports and extends recent research examining the positive impacts of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is not only a foundational and consistent aspect of personality, as previous studies report, but is also highly malleable and unstable in response to immediate situations. PMID:29016612

A New Heuristic Anonymization Technique for Privacy Preserved Datasets Publication on Cloud Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Aldeen Yousra, S.; Mazleena, Salleh

2018-05-01

Recent advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) demanded much of cloud services to sharing users’ private data. Data from various organizations are the vital information source for analysis and research. Generally, this sensitive or private data information involves medical, census, voter registration, social network, and customer services. Primary concern of cloud service providers in data publishing is to hide the sensitive information of individuals. One of the cloud services that fulfill the confidentiality concerns is Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM). The PPDM service in Cloud Computing (CC) enables data publishing with minimized distortion and absolute privacy. In this method, datasets are anonymized via generalization to accomplish the privacy requirements. However, the well-known privacy preserving data mining technique called K-anonymity suffers from several limitations. To surmount those shortcomings, I propose a new heuristic anonymization framework for preserving the privacy of sensitive datasets when publishing on cloud. The advantages of K-anonymity, L-diversity and (α, k)-anonymity methods for efficient information utilization and privacy protection are emphasized. Experimental results revealed the superiority and outperformance of the developed technique than K-anonymity, L-diversity, and (α, k)-anonymity measure.

Authority and Hierarchy within Anonymous Internet Relay Chat Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stewart Kenton Bertram

2015-09-01

Full Text Available 'The protest group Anonymous has emerged as one of the most significant social movements of recent years, announcing their arrival as a globally recognized brand with regular disruptive cyber attacks and the leak of large volumes of sensitive data. Despite the obvious significance of Anonymous, to date, little academic research has been focused on what role hierarchy and internal authority play (if any within the group. Bespoke software was used to structure over 5000 examples of IRC log files, so that a base line descriptive statistical picture could be drawn, as well as a more granular enumeration of the privileges associated with individual users.'

Research on Anonymization and De-anonymization in the Bitcoin System

OpenAIRE

ShenTu, QingChun; Yu, JianPing

2015-01-01

The Bitcoin system is an anonymous, decentralized crypto-currency. There are some deanonymizating techniques to cluster Bitcoin addresses and to map them to users' identifications in the two research directions of Analysis of Transaction Chain (ATC) and Analysis of Bitcoin Protocol and Network (ABPN). Nowadays, there are also some anonymization methods such as coin-mixing and transaction remote release (TRR) to cover the relationship between Bitcoin address and the user. This paper studies an...

Social causes of low birth weight.

OpenAIRE

Kogan, M D

1995-01-01

The manifest importance of reducing the incidence of low birth weight is most obvious for the first year of life: low birth weight is the single most important factor affecting infant morbidity and mortality. However, there is growing evidence that the adverse consequences of low birth weight continue throughout the life cycle. This review deals primarily with social causes of low birth weight.

Positioning of Weight Bias: Moving towards Social Justice.

Science.gov (United States)

Nutter, Sarah; Russell-Mayhew, Shelly; Alberga, Angela S; Arthur, Nancy; Kassan, Anusha; Lund, Darren E; Sesma-Vazquez, Monica; Williams, Emily

2016-01-01

Weight bias is a form of stigma with detrimental effects on the health and wellness of individuals with large bodies. Researchers from various disciplines have recognized weight bias as an important topic for public health and for professional practice. To date, researchers from various areas have approached weight bias from independent perspectives and from differing theoretical orientations. In this paper, we examined the similarities and differences between three perspectives (i.e., weight-centric, non-weight-centric (health-centric), and health at every size) used to understand weight bias and approach weight bias research with regard to (a) language about people with large bodies, (b) theoretical position, (c) identified consequences of weight bias, and (d) identified influences on weight-based social inequity. We suggest that, despite differences, each perspective acknowledges the negative influences that position weight as being within individual control and the negative consequences of weight bias. We call for recognition and discussion of weight bias as a social justice issue in order to change the discourse and professional practices extended towards individuals with large bodies. We advocate for an emphasis on social justice as a uniting framework for interdisciplinary research on weight bias.

For the Lulz: Anonymous, Aesthetics and Affect

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rodrigo Ferrada Stoehrel

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The focus of this paper is on different but connected areas of power – relating to things such as economic globalisation, surveillance, censorship/freedom, ‘terrorism’ and/or specific military activity – visually represented through online media, and intentionally produced to inform a wide spectrum of individuals and interest groups about global and local social injustices. Or, more importantly, produced and distributed with the purpose of providing users with possibilities to engage, bodily and emotionally, in diverse ways: may it be through physical antiwar/anti-wall street protests or hacktivist tactics (e.g. DDoS attacks. We examine a sample of videos, photographs and propaganda posters produced, and digitally distributed (2008-2013, by the fragmented body of activists united globally under the generic name of Anonymous. Analytically, we will draw upon Mouffe’s thoughts on ‘antagonism’ and ‘passion,’ Foucault’s ideas on international citizenship and the (ethical ‘right to intervene’ (beyond governmentality, together with Sontag’s notion of institutional political inertia and the Deleuzian/Spinozian perspective on affect as a capacity for action. The goal is to analyse the ways in which Anonymous systematically inspire (not only the radical and social imaginary but also other direct forms of action that have potential societal effects.

Digital anonymity on the internet : new rules for anonymous electronic transactions? an exploration of the private law implications of digital anonymity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grijpink, J.H.A.M.; Prins, C.

2001-01-01

This article sets out the most important conclusions of the first stage of a study into the dimensions of digital anonymity. It is intended to set out the problem, make people aware of the intricacies of the problem and thus stimulate the debate on useful legal structures for anonymity. The

Yahtzee: an anonymized group level matching procedure.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jason J Jones

Full Text Available Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while also needing to integrate data that contains personal information from diverse data sources. The advent of computational social science and the enormous amount of data about people that is being collected makes protecting the privacy of research subjects ever more important. However, strict privacy procedures can hinder the process of joining diverse sources of data that contain information about specific individual behaviors. In this paper we present a procedure to keep information about specific individuals from being "leaked" or shared in either direction between two sources of data without need of a trusted third party. To achieve this goal, we randomly assign individuals to anonymous groups before combining the anonymized information between the two sources of data. We refer to this method as the Yahtzee procedure, and show that it performs as predicted by theoretical analysis when we apply it to data from Facebook and public voter records.

Yahtzee: an anonymized group level matching procedure.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Jason J; Bond, Robert M; Fariss, Christopher J; Settle, Jaime E; Kramer, Adam D I; Marlow, Cameron; Fowler, James H

2013-01-01

Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while also needing to integrate data that contains personal information from diverse data sources. The advent of computational social science and the enormous amount of data about people that is being collected makes protecting the privacy of research subjects ever more important. However, strict privacy procedures can hinder the process of joining diverse sources of data that contain information about specific individual behaviors. In this paper we present a procedure to keep information about specific individuals from being "leaked" or shared in either direction between two sources of data without need of a trusted third party. To achieve this goal, we randomly assign individuals to anonymous groups before combining the anonymized information between the two sources of data. We refer to this method as the Yahtzee procedure, and show that it performs as predicted by theoretical analysis when we apply it to data from Facebook and public voter records.

Utility-preserving anonymization for health data publishing.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Hyukki; Kim, Soohyung; Kim, Jong Wook; Chung, Yon Dohn

2017-07-11

Publishing raw electronic health records (EHRs) may be considered as a breach of the privacy of individuals because they usually contain sensitive information. A common practice for the privacy-preserving data publishing is to anonymize the data before publishing, and thus satisfy privacy models such as k-anonymity. Among various anonymization techniques, generalization is the most commonly used in medical/health data processing. Generalization inevitably causes information loss, and thus, various methods have been proposed to reduce information loss. However, existing generalization-based data anonymization methods cannot avoid excessive information loss and preserve data utility. We propose a utility-preserving anonymization for privacy preserving data publishing (PPDP). To preserve data utility, the proposed method comprises three parts: (1) utility-preserving model, (2) counterfeit record insertion, (3) catalog of the counterfeit records. We also propose an anonymization algorithm using the proposed method. Our anonymization algorithm applies full-domain generalization algorithm. We evaluate our method in comparison with existence method on two aspects, information loss measured through various quality metrics and error rate of analysis result. With all different types of quality metrics, our proposed method show the lower information loss than the existing method. In the real-world EHRs analysis, analysis results show small portion of error between the anonymized data through the proposed method and original data. We propose a new utility-preserving anonymization method and an anonymization algorithm using the proposed method. Through experiments on various datasets, we show that the utility of EHRs anonymized by the proposed method is significantly better than those anonymized by previous approaches.

Anonymous Connections and Onion Routing

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Syverson, Paul F; Goldschlag, David M; Reed, Michael G

1997-01-01

.... Unmodified Internet applications can use these anonymous connections by means of proxies. The proxies may also make communication anonymous by removing identifying information from the data stream...

Anonymous Credential Schemes with Encrypted Attributes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Guajardo Merchan, J.; Mennink, B.; Schoenmakers, B.

2011-01-01

In anonymous credential schemes, users obtain credentials on certain attributes from an issuer, and later show these credentials to a relying party anonymously and without fully disclosing the attributes. In this paper, we introduce the notion of (anonymous) credential schemes with encrypted

Trust in Anonymity Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Sassone, Vladimiro; Hamadou, Sardaouna; Yang, Mu

Anonymity is a security property of paramount importance, as we move steadily towards a wired, online community. Its import touches upon subjects as different as eGovernance, eBusiness and eLeisure, as well as personal freedom of speech in authoritarian societies. Trust metrics are used in anonymity networks to support and enhance reliability in the absence of verifiable identities, and a variety of security attacks currently focus on degrading a user's trustworthiness in the eyes of the other users. In this paper, we analyse the privacy guarantees of the Crowds anonymity protocol, with and without onion forwarding, for standard and adaptive attacks against the trust level of honest users.

Teammates and social influence affect weight loss outcomes in a team-based weight loss competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Leahey, Tricia M; Kumar, Rajiv; Weinberg, Brad M; Wing, Rena R

2012-07-01

Team-based internet interventions are increasing in popularity as a way of promoting weight loss in large numbers of individuals. Given that social networks influence health behavior change, this study investigated the effects of teammates and social influence on individual weight loss during a team-based weight loss competition. Shape Up Rhode Island (SURI) 2009 was a 12-week online program open to adult residents of Rhode Island. Participants joined with a team and competed with other teams on weight loss and/or physical activity. Overweight/obese (OW/OB) individuals (N = 3,330; 76% female; age = 46.1 ± 10.8; BMI = 31.2 ± 5.3 kg/m(2)), representing 987 teams, completed the weight loss program. Multilevel modeling was used to examine whether weight loss clustered among teammates and whether percentage of teammates in the weight loss division and reported teammate influence on weight loss were associated with individual weight outcomes. OW/OB completers reported losing 4.2 ± 3.4% of initial body weight. Weight loss was similar among teammates (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.10, P social influence for weight loss were associated with greater percent weight loss (P's ≤ 0.002). Similarly, achieving a clinically significant (5%) weight loss tended to cluster within teams (ICC = 0.09; P social influence for weight loss were associated with increased likelihood of achieving a 5% weight loss (odds ratio (OR) = 1.06; OR = 1.20, respectively). These results suggest that teammates affect weight loss outcomes during a team-based intervention. Harnessing and maximizing teammate influence for weight loss may enhance weight outcomes in large-scale team-based programs.

Revocable Anonymous Access to the Internet?

Science.gov (United States)

Claessens, Joris; Diaz, Claudia; Goemans, Caroline; Preneel, Bart; Vandewalle, Joos; Dumortier, Jos

2003-01-01

Users of telecommunications networks are concerned about privacy, and desire anonymous access, while some organizations are concerned about how this anonymous access might be abused. Proposes a solution for revocable anonymous access to the Internet. Presents some legal background and motivation for such a solution. Indicates some difficulties and…

Socially weighted linear composites in environmental decision making

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hebert, J.A.; Lindell, M.K.; Maynard, W.S.; Nealey, S.M.; Burnham, J.B.

1975-11-01

A method for combining social values and technical information, for environmental decision making for the selection of a site for a nuclear power plant is described. Eight factors are identified by which six different thermal power plant site and design options could be evaluated. A method is described by which the factors could be weighted by social values and the weighted factor scores could be summed for each option. These weighted sums can then be compared with each other in order to determine the best choice from both a social and a technical point of view

Anonymous Transactions in Computer Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Dolev, Shlomi; Kopeetsky, Marina

We present schemes for providing anonymous transactions while privacy and anonymity are preserved, providing user anonymous authentication in distributed networks such as the Internet. We first present a practical scheme for anonymous transactions while the transaction resolution is assisted by a Trusted Authority. This practical scheme is extended to a theoretical scheme where a Trusted Authority is not involved in the transaction resolution. Given an authority that generates for each player hard to produce evidence EVID (e. g., problem instance with or without a solution) to each player, the identity of a user U is defined by the ability to prove possession of said evidence. We use Zero-Knowledge proof techniques to repeatedly identify U by providing a proof that U has evidence EVID, without revealing EVID, therefore avoiding identity theft.

Anon-Pass: Practical Anonymous Subscriptions.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Michael Z; Dunn, Alan M; Katz, Jonathan; Waters, Brent; Witchel, Emmett

2013-12-31

We present the design, security proof, and implementation of an anonymous subscription service. Users register for the service by providing some form of identity, which might or might not be linked to a real-world identity such as a credit card, a web login, or a public key. A user logs on to the system by presenting a credential derived from information received at registration. Each credential allows only a single login in any authentication window, or epoch . Logins are anonymous in the sense that the service cannot distinguish which user is logging in any better than random guessing. This implies unlinkability of a user across different logins. We find that a central tension in an anonymous subscription service is the service provider's desire for a long epoch (to reduce server-side computation) versus users' desire for a short epoch (so they can repeatedly "re-anonymize" their sessions). We balance this tension by having short epochs, but adding an efficient operation for clients who do not need unlinkability to cheaply re-authenticate themselves for the next time period. We measure performance of a research prototype of our protocol that allows an independent service to offer anonymous access to existing services. We implement a music service, an Android-based subway-pass application, and a web proxy, and show that adding anonymity adds minimal client latency and only requires 33 KB of server memory per active user.

Anonymity and informed consent in artificial procreation: a report from Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lebech, Anne Mette

1997-01-01

a problem concerning its application when dealing with people having a serious mental, social or even physical disability. Within the field of artificial procreation there are even more problems. Informed written consent is often demanded from anonymous donors of gametes in order to ensure their consent...

All or Nothing: The False Promise of Anonymity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neil Walker

2017-05-01

Full Text Available In early 2016, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE proposed that responsible sharing of de-identified individual-level data be required for clinical trials published in their affiliated journals. There would be a delay in implementing this policy to allow for the necessary informed consents to work their way through ethical review. Meanwhile, some researchers and policy makers have conflated the notions of de-identification and anonymity. The former is a process that seeks to mitigate disclosure risk though careful application of rules and statistical analysis, while the latter is an absolute state. The consequence of confusing the process and the state is profound. Extensions to the ICMJE proposal based on the presumed anonymity of data include: sharing unconsented data; sharing data without managing access, as Open Data; and proposals to sell data. This essay aims to show that anonymity (the state cannot be guaranteed by de-identification (the process, and so these extensions to the ICMJE proposal should be rejected on governance grounds, if no other. This is not as negative a position as it might seem, as other disciplines have been aware of these limitations and concomitant responsibilities for many years. The essay concludes with an example from social science of managed access strategies that could be adopted by the medical field.

A Novel Mobile Communications Authentication Scheme with Roaming Service and User Anonymity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kai Chain

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Many novel, effective, and efficient applications and networking services are being developed for the Social Internet of Things. Recently, Li proposed a more secure and efficient authentication scheme with roaming service and user anonymity for mobile communications. The security analysis and discussion of the agreement phase is sufficiently safe; however, an attacker can intercept the identity of a mobile user’s home agent in the authentication phase. By using this information, the attacker can mount distributed denial-of-service attacks in the roaming phase through replay attacks targeting the network’s foreign agent and mobile user’s home agent by using their corresponding session keys. Li’s method also has some shortcomings regarding anonymity that we aim to address. To overcome these issues, this study proposes an elliptic curve–based wireless roaming anonymous login method for the authentication phase. The problems faced in the roaming phase are resolved, and this approach provides balanced session key computation between senders and receivers. Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic (BAN-logic is used to verify the security of the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme affords good security, efficiency, and integrity and maintains anonymity.

Anonymous Boh avatud kunsti maastikul / Raivo Kelomees

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Kelomees, Raivo, 1960-

2010-01-01

Anonymous Bohi näitus Tartu Kunstimajas, avatud 30. juulini 2010. Anonymous Boh on koos Non Grataga läbi viinud performance´id Euroopas, Ameerikas ja Aasias. Anonymous Bohi vastused oma näituse ja loominguga seotud küsimustele

“We are Anonymous.” Anonymity in the Public Sphere – Challenges of Free and Open Communication

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saskia Sell

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Anonymity, the stealth mode of public communication, challenges different actors who deal with freedom of communication issues in their day to day life – be it professional journalists, information and communication scientists, technicians or political activists. This article aims to deliver theoretical background on the concept of anonymity on the macro-level, as well as to shed light on how different communicators deal with anonymity on the micro-level. Based on the example of the Anonymous movement, communicative actions are put in relation to media technological artifacts and their surrounding media environment with a focus on journalistic practice and public response to the phenomenon. The analysis concludes with the need for a preservation of options for anonymous public communication as a dimension of freedom of communication after carefully considering both the advantages and the potential risks connected to that mode of private-public communication.

Birth Weight and Social Trust in Adulthood: Evidence for Early Calibration of Social Cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Michael Bang; Aarøe, Lene

2015-11-01

Social trust forms the fundamental basis for social interaction within societies. Understanding the cognitive architecture of trust and the roots of individual differences in trust is of key importance. We predicted that one of the factors calibrating individual levels of trust is the intrauterine flow of nutrients from mother to child as indexed by birth weight. Birth weight forecasts both the future external environment and the internal condition of the individual in multiple ways relevant for social cognition. Specifically, we predicted that low birth weight is utilized as a forecast of a harsh environment, vulnerable condition, or both and, consequently, reduces social trust. The results of the study reported here are consistent with this prediction. Controlling for many confounds through sibling and panel designs, we found that lower birth weight reduced social trust in adulthood. Furthermore, we obtained tentative evidence that this effect is mitigated if adult environments do not induce stress. © The Author(s) 2015.

Mirroring the videos of Anonymous:cloud activism, living networks, and political mimesis

OpenAIRE

Fish, Adam Richard

2016-01-01

Mirrors describe the multiplication of data across a network. In this article, I examine the politics of mirroring as practiced on videos by the hacktivist network Anonymous. Mirrors are designed to retain visibility on social media platforms and motivate viewers towards activism. They emerge from a particular social structure and propagate a specific symbolic system. Furthermore, mirrors are not exact replicas nor postmodern representations. Rather, mirroring maps a contestation over visibil...

Anonymous communication networks protecting privacy on the web

CERN Document Server

Peng, Kun

2014-01-01

In today's interactive network environment, where various types of organizations are eager to monitor and track Internet use, anonymity is one of the most powerful resources available to counterbalance the threat of unknown spectators and to ensure Internet privacy.Addressing the demand for authoritative information on anonymous Internet usage, Anonymous Communication Networks: Protecting Privacy on the Web examines anonymous communication networks as a solution to Internet privacy concerns. It explains how anonymous communication networks make it possible for participants to communicate with

Development and Validation of Anonymous Third-Party Physicians’ Reports of Exemplar Cases of Social Iatrogenesis Questionnaire (ATPROSIQ

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdolreza Shaghaghi

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Objective: Social iatrogenesis is a phenomenon in which normal behaviour is redefined as a medical condition, and people depend on physicians’ help even in doing their normal tasks. It poses considerable problems to public health. The aim of this study was to design and psychometrically evaluate an instrument for measuring factors associated with social iatrogenesis by physicians. Method: This study is a methodological research that was conducted during 2016- 2017 in Tabriz, Iran. At first, a questionnaire was developed after literature review to generate a preliminary item pool and then, content and face validity were performed. In the quantitative phase, reliability (internal consistency and test-retest analysis, validity and exploratory factor analysis were performed to assess psychometric properties of the instrument. Results: A 26-item questionnaire was reduced to 20-item after content validity. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a three-factor solution (eigenvalues>1 explaining 41.94% of the cumulative variance. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient showed excellent internal consistency (alpha=0.8, and test-retest of the scale with a 2-week interval indicated an appropriate stability (ICC=0.97. Conclusion: The anonymous third-party physicians’ report of exemplar cases of social iatrogenesis questionnaire is reliable and valid and can be used in health care systems.

The role of social media in online weight management: systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Tammy; Chopra, Vineet; Zhang, Catherine; Woolford, Susan J

2013-11-28

Social media applications are promising adjuncts to online weight management interventions through facilitating education, engagement, and peer support. However, the precise impact of social media on weight management is unclear. The objective of this study was to systematically describe the use and impact of social media in online weight management interventions. PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for English-language studies published through March 25, 2013. Additional studies were identified by searching bibliographies of electronically retrieved articles. Randomized controlled trials of online weight management interventions that included a social media component for individuals of all ages were selected. Studies were evaluated using 2 systematic scales to assess risk of bias and study quality. Of 517 citations identified, 20 studies met eligibility criteria. All study participants were adults. Because the included studies varied greatly in study design and reported outcomes, meta-analysis of interventions was not attempted. Although message boards and chat rooms were the most common social media component included, their effect on weight outcomes was not reported in most studies. Only one study measured the isolated effect of social media. It found greater engagement of participants, but no difference in weight-related outcomes. In all, 65% of studies were of high quality; 15% of studies were at low risk of bias. Despite the widespread use of social media, few studies have quantified the effect of social media in online weight management interventions; thus, its impact is still unknown. Although social media may play a role in retaining and engaging participants, studies that are designed to measure its effect are needed to understand whether and how social media may meaningfully improve weight management.

Practical anonymity hiding in plain sight online

CERN Document Server

Loshin, Peter

2013-01-01

For those with legitimate reason to use the Internet anonymously--diplomats, military and other government agencies, journalists, political activists, IT professionals, law enforcement personnel, political refugees and others--anonymous networking provides an invaluable tool, and many good reasons that anonymity can serve a very important purpose. Anonymous use of the Internet is made difficult by the many websites that know everything about us, by the cookies and ad networks, IP-logging ISPs, even nosy officials may get involved. It is no longer possible to turn off browser cookies to be l

Children's judgements and emotions about social exclusion based on weight.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Christine; Malti, Tina

2014-09-01

This study examined children's judgements and emotions associated with weight-based social exclusion using an ethnically diverse sample of one hundred and seventeen 9- and 13-year-old children. Children were interviewed about three scenarios depicting weight-based exclusion in athletic, academic, and social contexts. Children's judgements of exclusion, emotions attributed to the excluder and excluded targets, and justifications for judgements and emotions were examined. Overall, children judged weight-based exclusion to be wrong for moral reasons. However, they viewed weight-based exclusion in athletic contexts as less wrong compared with academic contexts, and they used more social-conventional reasoning to justify judgements and emotions attributed to excluders in athletic contexts compared with academic and social contexts. Children also expected excluded targets to feel negative emotions, whereas a range of positive and negative emotions was attributed to excluders. In addition, older children were more accepting of weight-based exclusion in athletic contexts than in academic and social contexts. We discuss the results in relation to the development of children's understanding of, and emotions associated with, exclusion based on weight. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Are anonymous evaluations a better assessment of faculty teaching performance? A comparative analysis of open and anonymous evaluation processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Afonso, Nelia M; Cardozo, Lavoisier J; Mascarenhas, Oswald A J; Aranha, Anil N F; Shah, Chirag

2005-01-01

We compared teaching performance of medical school faculty using anonymous evaluations and open evaluations (in which the evaluator was not anonymous) and examined barriers to open evaluation. Residents and medical students evaluated faculty using an open evaluation instrument in which their identity was indicated in the evaluation. Following this, they completed anonymous evaluation on the same faculty members. Aggregate outcomes using the two evaluation systems were compared. Outcomes by group of evaluators (residents and students) were analyzed. Trainees were also asked to rate the barriers to the open evaluation process. A statistically significant difference between the open and anonymous evaluations was noted across all items, with faculty receiving lower scores on the anonymous evaluations. The mean score for all the items on the open evaluations was 4.45 +/- 0.65, compared to mean score of 4.07 +/- 0.80 on the anonymous evaluations. There was also a statistically significant difference between open and anonymous evaluations in five clinical teaching domains that were evaluated individually. Residents perceived that the three most common barriers to optimal evaluation were an apprehension of possible encounters with the same attending physician in the future, destruction of working relationships with the attending, and a feeling of frustration with the evaluation system. The evaluation of faculty teaching performance is complex. Most academic medical centers use the open evaluation format. This study supports the case for the use of the anonymous evaluation method as a more accurate reflection of teaching performance.

Alcoholics Anonymous and twelve-step recovery: a model based on social and cognitive neuroscience.

Science.gov (United States)

Galanter, Marc

2014-01-01

In the course of achieving abstinence from alcohol, longstanding members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) typically experience a change in their addiction-related attitudes and behaviors. These changes are reflective of physiologically grounded mechanisms which can be investigated within the disciplines of social and cognitive neuroscience. This article is designed to examine recent findings associated with these disciplines that may shed light on the mechanisms underlying this change. Literature review and hypothesis development. Pertinent aspects of the neural impact of drugs of abuse are summarized. After this, research regarding specific brain sites, elucidated primarily by imaging techniques, is reviewed relative to the following: Mirroring and mentalizing are described in relation to experimentally modeled studies on empathy and mutuality, which may parallel the experiences of social interaction and influence on AA members. Integration and retrieval of memories acquired in a setting like AA are described, and are related to studies on storytelling, models of self-schema development, and value formation. A model for ascription to a Higher Power is presented. The phenomena associated with AA reflect greater complexity than the empirical studies on which this article is based, and certainly require further elucidation. Despite this substantial limitation in currently available findings, there is heuristic value in considering the relationship between the brain-based and clinical phenomena described here. There are opportunities for the study of neuroscientific correlates of Twelve-Step-based recovery, and these can potentially enhance our understanding of related clinical phenomena. © American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.

Anonymous quantum communications using the quantum one-time pad

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Qing-Le; Gao, Fei-; Liu, Bin; Song, Ting-Ting; Wen, Qiao-Yan

2015-01-01

We present the first quantum secure communication protocol for an anonymous receiver without the assistance of anonymous entanglement. In previous works, if a public sender wants to send quantum messages to a chosen receiver while protecting the identity of the receiver from others, all participants should cooperate first to construct the entanglement between the sender and the anonymous receiver. This is the most important process in anonymous quantum communications. With anonymous entanglement, the sender can communicate quantum messages to the anonymous receiver by applying teleportation protocols. In contrast, our protocol is novel and achieves communication of quantum messages directly from the public sender to the anonymous receiver based on the quantum one-time pad and current achievements. Notably, the anonymity of the receiver, as well as the privacy of the quantum messages, is perfectly protected with the exception of an exponentially small probability in our protocol. (paper)

The bid to lose weight: impact of social media on weight perceptions, weight control and diabetes.

Science.gov (United States)

Das, Leah; Mohan, Ranjini; Makaya, Tafadzwa

2014-01-01

Over the last decade the internet has come to permeate every aspect of our lives. With huge leaps in accessibility of the internet via mobile personal devices such as smart cellular phones and tablets, individuals are connected to the internet virtually all the time. It is no surprise therefore that social media now dominates the lives of many people within society. The authors take a look at how social media is influencing diabetes with particular focus on weight perception, weight management and eating behaviours. The authors explore the concept of how the advertising of Size 0 models and photo-shopping of images which are easily available on line and via social media is causing an increase in the number of young people with distorted body images. This has led to an increased number of people resorting to sometimes drastic weight loss programmes. We focus on the bid for 'low-fat' consumption and highlight how this could actually be leading to an increased risk for developing diabetes or worsening the complications of diabetes. We also discuss the increase of eating disorder in diabetes related to this distorted body image.

Quality of life changes in an alcoholics anonymous self-help group

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

INDRĖ DIRGĖLIENĖ

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The issue of alcohol addiction is one of the most pressing in contemporary society as it causes an effect in the context of poverty, violence and suicidal behaviour. After the restoration of Lithuania‘s Independence a new helping profession such as social worker appeared: they were expected to provide professional help to people in order to help them find inner motivation for positive socialization or re-socialization. The issue of alcohol addiction/dependence was first viewed systemically, with the understanding of the need for systemic help: social, psychological, spiritual and medical. Long-term rehabilitation centres have been created and self-help groups formed: those of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA, Al-anon (self – help groups for friends and families who have relatives suffering from alcohol and ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics self-help group. The article analyzes the quality of life changes in an Alcoholics Anonymous self-help group. Qualitative survey data are presented in this article. Six life stories of people attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA self-help groups are provided. The age of the participants ranges from 31 to 58. The main criterion to participate in the research is: people who have or have had problems because of alcohol usage and who are Alcoholics Anonymous self-help group (AA participants that have reached Step 12. This means they are ready to spread the message about recovering from this abuse to people who suffer from it. Deep analysis interview has been used to collect the data. Interview notional blocks are: 1 childhood experiences; 2 addiction to alcohol period and crisis; 3 changes of life quality when attending AA groups. The study data have been provided using content analysis through the deduction method. The theoretical basis is a systematic approach to a person in the course of his life‘ spiritual concepts and stages of recovery (May, 2004; Linn, Linn, 2003; Kubler-Ross, 2008 and the theory of integrated

Anonymization of Court Orders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Povlsen, Claus; Jongejan, Bart; Hansen, Dorte Haltrup

We describe an anonymization tool that was commissioned by and specified together with Schultz, a publishing company specialized in Danish law related publications. Unavailability of training data and the need to guarantee compliance with pre-existing anonymization guidelines forced us to implement...... a tool using manually crafted rules. We used Bracmat, a programming language that is specialized in transforming tree data structures, to meet the requirement to pass the XML structure of the input document unscathed through the whole workflow. The tool attains a reassuringly good recall, makes almost...

Anonymous women? Gamblers Anonymous and gender

OpenAIRE

Rogers, Jim

2016-01-01

One of the rapidly changing elements in gambling environments is the increasing participation of women in many forms of gambling, and the growing proportions of problem gamblers who are female. It is known that women who develop gambling problems differ from men in a range of ways:for example they are more likely to have co-morbidities such as anxiety and depression, and to gamble as an 'escape' from such co-occuring problems. Gamblers Anonymous (GA) has a number of meetings across New Zeala...

Anonymity in P2P Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Manzanares-Lopez, Pilar; Muñoz-Gea, Juan Pedro; Malgosa-Sanahuja, Josemaria; Sanchez-Aarnoutse, Juan Carlos

In the last years, the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications to share and exchange knowledge among people around the world has experienced an exponential growth. Therefore, it is understandable that, like in any successful communication mechanism used by a lot of humans being, the anonymity can be a desirable characteristic in this scenario. Anonymity in P2P networks can be obtained by means of different methods, although the most significant ones are broadcast protocols, dining-cryptographer (DC) nets and multiple-hop paths. Each of these methods can be tunable in order to build a real anonymity P2P application. In addition, there is a mathematical tool called entropy that can be used in some scenarios to quantify anonymity in communication networks. In some cases, it can be calculated analytically but in others it is necessary to use simulation to obtain the network entropy.

[Perinatal health: low birth weight and social class].

Science.gov (United States)

da Silva, A A; Barbieri, M A; Bettiol, H; Dal Bó, C M; Mucillo, G; Gomes, U A

1991-04-01

A survey was carried out in Ribeirão Preto, S. Paulo State, Brazil, between June 1978 and May 1979 with a view to studying the prevalence of low birth weight and its occurrence among different social classes. Data were collected from 8,878 singleton live births in eight maternity hospitals, accounting for 98% of all births in the area. Social classes were determinated by the use of a model proposed by Singer and modified for epidemiological purposes by Barros. Out of the 8,878 births, 660 (7.5%) were of low birth weight. The prevalence of deficient weight at birth (between 2,500 and 2,999 grams) was of 21.1%. Analysis indicated that 50.6% of children with low birth weight were at term and the majority of them suffered form intrauterine growth retardation. The prevalence of low birth weight according to social class was seen to be lower in the bourgeoisie classes (ranging from 2.8% to 3.9%) and higher in working classes (from 7% up to 9.5%). Low birth weight (defined as less than or equal to 2,500 grams) was used for purposes of comparison with other previous surveys. The percentage was lower in this study (8.3%) than that found in the Interamerican Investigation of Mortality in Childhood (8.7%), carried out in 1968-70. No statistically significant differences in the percentage of low birth weight were found in the case of Ribeirão Preto when these two surveys were compared.

Privacy Breach Analysis in Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Nagle, Frank

This chapter addresses various aspects of analyzing privacy breaches in social networks. We first review literature that defines three types of privacy breaches in social networks: interactive, active, and passive. We then survey the various network anonymization schemes that have been constructed to address these privacy breaches. After exploring these breaches and anonymization schemes, we evaluate a measure for determining the level of anonymity inherent in a network graph based on its topological structure. Finally, we close by emphasizing the difficulty of anonymizing social network data while maintaining usability for research purposes and offering areas for future work.

Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Online Firestorms in Social Media.

Science.gov (United States)

Rost, Katja; Stahel, Lea; Frey, Bruno S

2016-01-01

Actors of public interest today have to fear the adverse impact that stems from social media platforms. Any controversial behavior may promptly trigger temporal, but potentially devastating storms of emotional and aggressive outrage, so called online firestorms. Popular targets of online firestorms are companies, politicians, celebrities, media, academics and many more. This article introduces social norm theory to understand online aggression in a social-political online setting, challenging the popular assumption that online anonymity is one of the principle factors that promotes aggression. We underpin this social norm view by analyzing a major social media platform concerned with public affairs over a period of three years entailing 532,197 comments on 1,612 online petitions. Results show that in the context of online firestorms, non-anonymous individuals are more aggressive compared to anonymous individuals. This effect is reinforced if selective incentives are present and if aggressors are intrinsically motivated.

Efficient and anonymous two-factor user authentication in wireless sensor networks: achieving user anonymity with lightweight sensor computation.

Science.gov (United States)

Nam, Junghyun; Choo, Kim-Kwang Raymond; Han, Sangchul; Kim, Moonseong; Paik, Juryon; Won, Dongho

2015-01-01

A smart-card-based user authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks (hereafter referred to as a SCA-WSN scheme) is designed to ensure that only users who possess both a smart card and the corresponding password are allowed to gain access to sensor data and their transmissions. Despite many research efforts in recent years, it remains a challenging task to design an efficient SCA-WSN scheme that achieves user anonymity. The majority of published SCA-WSN schemes use only lightweight cryptographic techniques (rather than public-key cryptographic techniques) for the sake of efficiency, and have been demonstrated to suffer from the inability to provide user anonymity. Some schemes employ elliptic curve cryptography for better security but require sensors with strict resource constraints to perform computationally expensive scalar-point multiplications; despite the increased computational requirements, these schemes do not provide user anonymity. In this paper, we present a new SCA-WSN scheme that not only achieves user anonymity but also is efficient in terms of the computation loads for sensors. Our scheme employs elliptic curve cryptography but restricts its use only to anonymous user-to-gateway authentication, thereby allowing sensors to perform only lightweight cryptographic operations. Our scheme also enjoys provable security in a formal model extended from the widely accepted Bellare-Pointcheval-Rogaway (2000) model to capture the user anonymity property and various SCA-WSN specific attacks (e.g., stolen smart card attacks, node capture attacks, privileged insider attacks, and stolen verifier attacks).

Efficient and anonymous two-factor user authentication in wireless sensor networks: achieving user anonymity with lightweight sensor computation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junghyun Nam

Full Text Available A smart-card-based user authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks (hereafter referred to as a SCA-WSN scheme is designed to ensure that only users who possess both a smart card and the corresponding password are allowed to gain access to sensor data and their transmissions. Despite many research efforts in recent years, it remains a challenging task to design an efficient SCA-WSN scheme that achieves user anonymity. The majority of published SCA-WSN schemes use only lightweight cryptographic techniques (rather than public-key cryptographic techniques for the sake of efficiency, and have been demonstrated to suffer from the inability to provide user anonymity. Some schemes employ elliptic curve cryptography for better security but require sensors with strict resource constraints to perform computationally expensive scalar-point multiplications; despite the increased computational requirements, these schemes do not provide user anonymity. In this paper, we present a new SCA-WSN scheme that not only achieves user anonymity but also is efficient in terms of the computation loads for sensors. Our scheme employs elliptic curve cryptography but restricts its use only to anonymous user-to-gateway authentication, thereby allowing sensors to perform only lightweight cryptographic operations. Our scheme also enjoys provable security in a formal model extended from the widely accepted Bellare-Pointcheval-Rogaway (2000 model to capture the user anonymity property and various SCA-WSN specific attacks (e.g., stolen smart card attacks, node capture attacks, privileged insider attacks, and stolen verifier attacks.

Your Health Buddies Matter: Preferential Selection and Social Influence on Weight Management in an Online Health Social Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Meng, Jingbo

2016-12-01

A growing number of online social networks are designed with the intention to promote health by providing virtual space wherein individuals can seek and share information and support with similar others. Research has shown that real-world social networks have a significant influence on one's health behavior and outcomes. However, there is a dearth of studies on how individuals form social networks in virtual space and whether such online social networks exert any impact on individuals' health outcomes. Built on the Multi-Theoretical Multilevel (MTML) framework and drawing from literature on social influence, this study examined the mechanisms underlying the formation of an online health social network and empirically tested social influence on individual health outcomes through the network. Situated in a weight management social networking site, the study tracked a health buddy network of 709 users and their weight management activities and outcomes for 4 months. Actor-based modeling was used to test the joint dynamics of preferential selection and social influence among health buddies. The results showed that baseline, inbreeding, and health status homophily significantly predicted preferential selection of health buddies in the weight management social networking site, whereas self-interest in seeking experiential health information did not. The study also found peer influence of online health buddy networks on individual weight outcomes, such that an individual's odds of losing weight increased if, on average, the individual's health buddies were losing weight.

Discount rates, equity weights and the social cost of carbon

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hope, Chris

2008-01-01

Equity weighting has been proposed as a way of allowing welfare equivalents to be included in the social cost of carbon since a dollar to a poor person is worth more than a dollar to a rich one. Here we use the PAGE2002 integrated assessment model to show that the social cost of carbon is higher without equity weights (an elasticity of marginal utility with respect to income of 0) than with them. This might seem counter-intuitive, but it comes about because of the logical link between equity weights and discount rates; as the elasticity goes from 0 to - 0.5 to - 1.0, the social rate of time preference rises, and the drop in present values that results far outweighs the small increase in impacts that equity weights bring. (author)

Impact of social pressure on stereotypes about obese people.

Science.gov (United States)

Harper, Jessica; Carels, Robert A

2014-01-01

This study was designed to test the effects of different types of influence on the expression of stereotypes towards people who are obese. It was hypothesized that public social pressure would more significantly impact the expression of stereotypes towards obese people than other types of influence. One-hundred fifty-eight undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions or a control condition. Participants completed measures of stereotypes towards obese people prior to and after receiving manipulated feedback depicting purported stereotypes possessed by others (anonymously or publically) or scientific information about the base rates of these stereotypical traits in the obese population (i.e., trait prevalence). Participants also completed a measure of weight bias unrelated to the manipulated feedback. Explicit beliefs were influenced more when people perceived that others' views were inconsistent with their own in a public setting than an anonymous setting or when they received trait prevalence feedback. However, levels of weight bias on a separate measure were unchanged. Strong, public manipulations of social feedback have great potential to impact, at least, the short-term expression of stereotypes towards obese people.

Protecting genomic sequence anonymity with generalization lattices.

Science.gov (United States)

Malin, B A

2005-01-01

Current genomic privacy technologies assume the identity of genomic sequence data is protected if personal information, such as demographics, are obscured, removed, or encrypted. While demographic features can directly compromise an individual's identity, recent research demonstrates such protections are insufficient because sequence data itself is susceptible to re-identification. To counteract this problem, we introduce an algorithm for anonymizing a collection of person-specific DNA sequences. The technique is termed DNA lattice anonymization (DNALA), and is based upon the formal privacy protection schema of k -anonymity. Under this model, it is impossible to observe or learn features that distinguish one genetic sequence from k-1 other entries in a collection. To maximize information retained in protected sequences, we incorporate a concept generalization lattice to learn the distance between two residues in a single nucleotide region. The lattice provides the most similar generalized concept for two residues (e.g. adenine and guanine are both purines). The method is tested and evaluated with several publicly available human population datasets ranging in size from 30 to 400 sequences. Our findings imply the anonymization schema is feasible for the protection of sequences privacy. The DNALA method is the first computational disclosure control technique for general DNA sequences. Given the computational nature of the method, guarantees of anonymity can be formally proven. There is room for improvement and validation, though this research provides the groundwork from which future researchers can construct genomics anonymization schemas tailored to specific datasharing scenarios.

Social class, gender, and time use: implications for the social determinants of body weight?

Science.gov (United States)

McLaren, Lindsay; Godley, Jenny; MacNairn, Ian A S

2009-12-01

The social gradient in body weight (for example, obesity) departs from the social gradient in other health outcomes. Innovative approaches are needed to understand the observed patterns. This study examines time-use patterns by indicators of socio-economic position, and considers the implications of variations in time use for the social gradient in weight reported in other studies. The data are from respondents aged 25 to 64 to Canada's 1986 and 2005 General Social Surveys, which focused on time use. Participation in various activities was examined by sex, and by personal income and education, stratified by sex, in both years. Higher-income men and women were more likely than those of lower income to spend time in paid work, commuting and eating out, and less likely to spend time sleeping. Men and women with higher education were more likely than those with lower education to spend time in physical activity (2005 only) and reading. These time-use patterns plausibly contribute to the social gradient in obesity reported in other Canadian studies. The findings suggest that there is value in looking beyond a narrow range of health behaviours toward broader measures of daily routines to gain insight into the social determinants of weight and health.

A framework for automatically checking anonymity with μ CRL

OpenAIRE

Chothia, T.; Orzan, S.M.; Pang, J.; Torabi Dashti, M.; Montanari, U.; Sannella, D.; Bruni, R.

2007-01-01

We present a powerful and flexible method for automatically checking anonymity in a possibilistic general-purpose process algebraic verification toolset. We propose new definitions of a choice anonymity degree and a player anonymity degree, to quantify the precision with which an intruder is able to single out the true originator of a given event or to associate the right event to a given protocol participant. We show how these measures of anonymity can be automatically calculated from a prot...

k-Times Anonymous Authentication

Science.gov (United States)

Teranishi, Isamu; Furukawa, Jun; Sako, Kazue

We propose an authentication scheme in which users can be authenticated anonymously so long as times that they are authenticated is within an allowable number. The proposed scheme has two features: 1) no one, not even an authority, can identify users who have been authenticated within the allowable number, 2) anyone can trace, without help from the authority, dishonest users who have been authenticated beyond the allowable number by using the records of these authentications. Our scheme can be applied to e-voting, e-cash, electronic coupons, and trial browsing of content. In these applications, our scheme, unlike the previous one, conceals users' participation from protocols and guarantees that they will remain anonymous to everyone.

Proxies for Anonymous Routing

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Reed, Michael G; Syverson, Paul F; Goldschlag, David M

1996-01-01

...), and file transfers (FTP) have been implemented. Onion routing provides application independent, real-time, and bi-directional anonymous connections that are resistant to both eavesdropping and traffic analysis...

Is it OK to be an Anonymous?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Serracino Inglott, P.

2013-01-01

Do the deviant acts carried out by the collective known as Anonymous qualify as vigilante activity, and if so, can they be justified? Addressing this question helps expose the difficulties of morally evaluating technologically enabled deviance. Anonymous is a complex, fluid actor but not as

Annotation and Anonymity: Playful Photo-Sharing by Visiting Groups of Teenagers

OpenAIRE

Rowland, Duncan; Appiah-Kubi, Kwamena; Shipp, Victoria; Mortier, Richard Michael; Benford, Steve

2015-01-01

This paper investigates the playful photo taking behaviour of teenagers during group visits to two touristic public events (an airshow and a guided tour of a museum). These studies provide the feedback for the iterative development of a smartphone based anonymous image annotation and sharing application. The resulting implications for the design of such photo systems are examined, specifically the appropriateness of opportunistic upload for social media. Playfulness in photography has many im...

(In)visible Ghosts in the Machine and the Powers that Bind: The Relational Securitization of Anonymous

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dunn Cavelty, Myriam; Jaeger, Mark Daniel

2015-01-01

prerogative to secrecy, and challenging its claim to unrestrained surveillance. At the same time, the state's bases are implicated and reproduced in the way this conflict is constructed. The conflict not only (re)produces and makes visible “the state” as a social entity, but also changes or at least...... designations give rise to the visibility of political entities and agency in the first place. Applying this framework, we can better understand the movement's path from a bunch of anonymous individuals to the collectivity “Anonymous,” posing a threat to certain bases of the state's ontological existence, its...

Factors associated with attendance in 12-step groups (Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous) among adults with alcohol problems living with HIV/AIDS.

Science.gov (United States)

Orwat, John; Samet, Jeffrey H; Tompkins, Christopher P; Cheng, Debbie M; Dentato, Michael P; Saitz, Richard

2011-01-15

Despite the value of 12-step meetings, few studies have examined factors associated with attendance among those living with HIV/AIDS, such as the impact of HIV disease severity and demographics. This study examines predisposing characteristics, enabling resources and need on attendance at Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings among those living with HIV/AIDS and alcohol problems. Secondary analysis of prospective data from the HIV-Longitudinal Interrelationships of Viruses and Ethanol study, a cohort of 400 adults living with HIV/AIDS and alcohol problems. Factors associated with AA/NA attendance were identified using the Anderson model for vulnerable populations. Generalized estimating equation logistic regression models were fit to identify factors associated with self-reported AA/NA attendance. At study entry, subjects were 75% male, 12% met diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence, 43% had drug dependence and 56% reported attending one or more AA/NA meetings (past 6 months). In the adjusted model, female gender negatively associated with attendance, as were social support systems that use alcohol and/or drugs, while presence of HCV antibody, drug dependence diagnosis, and homelessness associated with higher odds of attendance. Non-substance abuse related barriers to AA/NA group attendance exist for those living with HIV/AIDS, including females and social support systems that use alcohol and/or drugs. Positive associations of homelessness, HCV infection and current drug dependence were identified. These findings provide implications for policy makers and treatment professionals who wish to encourage attendance at 12-step meetings for those living with HIV/AIDS and alcohol or other substance use problems. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Mechanism for Anonymous Credit Card Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Tamura, Shinsuke; Yanase, Tatsuro

This paper proposes a mechanism for anonymous credit card systems, in which each credit card holder can conceal individual transactions from the credit card company, while enabling the credit card company to calculate the total expenditures of transactions of individual card holders during specified periods, and to identify card holders who executed dishonest transactions. Based on three existing mechanisms, i.e. anonymous authentication, blind signature and secure statistical data gathering, together with implicit transaction links proposed here, the proposed mechanism enables development of anonymous credit card systems without assuming any absolutely trustworthy entity like tamper resistant devices or organizations faithful both to the credit card company and card holders.

An Applet-based Anonymous Distributed Computing System.

Science.gov (United States)

Finkel, David; Wills, Craig E.; Ciaraldi, Michael J.; Amorin, Kevin; Covati, Adam; Lee, Michael

2001-01-01

Defines anonymous distributed computing systems and focuses on the specifics of a Java, applet-based approach for large-scale, anonymous, distributed computing on the Internet. Explains the possibility of a large number of computers participating in a single computation and describes a test of the functionality of the system. (Author/LRW)

THE WIKILEAKS´S CASE AND ANONYMITY: EFFECTS ON THE INFORMATION FREEDOM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marlus Heriberto Arns de Oliveira

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, enacted in 1988 during the democratization process of the country after the end of an authoritarian regime preceded by several others that show a non-democratic tradition in the Brazilian Republic, remained still remnants an authoritarian Patronizing and Paternalist state, the example of the final part of the Article 5, item IV, which claims to be the free expression of thought, but forbids anonymity, prohibition which deserves to be rethought, especially on the internet, where the navigation data of people deserve protection, as well as their rights to remain anonymous, a fact which entails the need for reflection on the scope and how best to interpret the constitutional provision cited, a debate that, in the proposed article will deal think the ideas of paternalism, authoritarianism and freedom, whose focus will be about within the Internet, social networks and the Knowledge Society.

Data Retention and Anonymity Services

Science.gov (United States)

Berthold, Stefan; Böhme, Rainer; Köpsell, Stefan

The recently introduced legislation on data retention to aid prosecuting cyber-related crime in Europe also affects the achievable security of systems for anonymous communication on the Internet. We argue that data retention requires a review of existing security evaluations against a new class of realistic adversary models. In particular, we present theoretical results and first empirical evidence for intersection attacks by law enforcement authorities. The reference architecture for our study is the anonymity service AN.ON, from which we also collect empirical data. Our adversary model reflects an interpretation of the current implementation of the EC Directive on Data Retention in Germany.

Anonymous Authentication for Smartcards

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Hajny

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The paper presents an innovative solution in the field of RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification smartcard authentication. Currently the smartcards are used for many purposes - e.g. employee identification, library cards, student cards or even identity credentials. Personal identity is revealed to untrustworthy entities every time we use these cards. Such information could later be used without our knowledge and for harmful reasons like shopping pattern scanning or even movement tracking. We present a communication scheme for keeping one’s identity private in this paper. Although our system provides anonymity, it does not allow users to abuse this feature. The system is based on strong cryptographic primitives that provide features never available before. Besides theoretical design of the anonymous authentication scheme and its analysis we also provide implementation results.

Security Analysis of Accountable Anonymous Group Communication in Dissent

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-31

instance, group discussion forums or instant messaging. Misbehaving users may abuse this anonymity to disrupt communication, however, and existing...Abstract Users often wish to communicate anonymously on the Internet using, for instance, group discussion forums or instant messaging. Misbehaving users may...personal reprisal (Stein 2003). Yet anonymity makes it difficult to trace or exclude misbehaving participants (Davenport 2002). Online proto- cols

Role of social support in lifestyle-focused weight management interventions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verheijden, M.W.; Bakx, J.C.; Weel, van C.; Koelen, M.A.; Staveren, van W.A.

2005-01-01

Social support is important to achieve beneficial changes in risk factors for disease, such as overweight and obesity. This paper presents the theoretical and practical framework for social support, and the mechanisms by which social support affects body weight. The theoretical and practical

Role of social support in lifestyle-focused weight management interventions.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verheijden, M.W.; Bakx, J.C.; Weel, C. van; Koelen, M.A.; Staveren, W.A. van

2005-01-01

Social support is important to achieve beneficial changes in risk factors for disease, such as overweight and obesity. This paper presents the theoretical and practical framework for social support, and the mechanisms by which social support affects body weight. The theoretical and practical

Use of anonymous Web communities and websites by medical consumers in Japan to research drug information.

Science.gov (United States)

Kishimoto, Keiko; Fukushima, Noriko

2011-01-01

In this study, we investigated the status of researching drug information online, and the type of Internet user who uses anonymous Web communities and websites. A Web-based cross-sectional survey of 10875 male and female Internet users aged 16 and over was conducted in March 2010. Of 10282 analyzed respondents, excluding medical professionals, about 47% reported that they had previously searched the Internet for drug information and had used online resources ranging from drug information search engines and pharmaceutical industry websites to social networking sites and Twitter. Respondents who had researched drug information online (n=4861) were analyzed by two multivariable logistic regressions. In Model 1, the use of anonymous websites associated with age (OR, 0.778; 95% CI, 0.742-0.816), referring to the reputation and the narrative of other Internet users on shopping (OR, 1.640; 95% CI, 1.450-1.855), taking a prescription drug (OR, 0.806; 95% CI, 0.705-0.922), and frequent consulting with non-professionals about medical care and health (OR, 1.613; 95% CI, 1.396-1.865). In Model 2, use of only anonymous websites was associated with age (OR, 0.753; 95% CI, 0.705-0.805), using the Internet daily (OR, 0.611; 95% CI, 0.462-0.808), taking a prescription drug (OR, 0.614; 95% CI, 0.505-0.747), and experience a side effect (OR, 0.526; 95% CI, 0.421-0.658). The analysis revealed the profiles of Internet users who researched drug information on social media sites where the information providers are anonymous and do not necessarily have adequate knowledge of medicine and online information literacy.

Anonymous publication of sensitive transactional data

KAUST Repository

Ghinita, Gabriel; Kalnis, Panos; Tao, Yufei

2011-01-01

Existing research on privacy-preserving data publishing focuses on relational data: in this context, the objective is to enforce privacy-preserving paradigms, such as k-anonymity and ℓ-diversity, while minimizing the information loss incurred in the anonymizing process (i.e., maximize data utility). Existing techniques work well for fixed-schema data, with low dimensionality. Nevertheless, certain applications require privacy-preserving publishing of transactional data (or basket data), which involve hundreds or even thousands of dimensions, rendering existing methods unusable. We propose two categories of novel anonymization methods for sparse high-dimensional data. The first category is based on approximate nearest-neighbor (NN) search in high-dimensional spaces, which is efficiently performed through locality-sensitive hashing (LSH). In the second category, we propose two data transformations that capture the correlation in the underlying data: 1) reduction to a band matrix and 2) Gray encoding-based sorting. These representations facilitate the formation of anonymized groups with low information loss, through an efficient linear-time heuristic. We show experimentally, using real-life data sets, that all our methods clearly outperform existing state of the art. Among the proposed techniques, NN-search yields superior data utility compared to the band matrix transformation, but incurs higher computational overhead. The data transformation based on Gray code sorting performs best in terms of both data utility and execution time. © 2006 IEEE.

Anonymous publication of sensitive transactional data

KAUST Repository

Ghinita, Gabriel

2011-02-01

Existing research on privacy-preserving data publishing focuses on relational data: in this context, the objective is to enforce privacy-preserving paradigms, such as k-anonymity and ℓ-diversity, while minimizing the information loss incurred in the anonymizing process (i.e., maximize data utility). Existing techniques work well for fixed-schema data, with low dimensionality. Nevertheless, certain applications require privacy-preserving publishing of transactional data (or basket data), which involve hundreds or even thousands of dimensions, rendering existing methods unusable. We propose two categories of novel anonymization methods for sparse high-dimensional data. The first category is based on approximate nearest-neighbor (NN) search in high-dimensional spaces, which is efficiently performed through locality-sensitive hashing (LSH). In the second category, we propose two data transformations that capture the correlation in the underlying data: 1) reduction to a band matrix and 2) Gray encoding-based sorting. These representations facilitate the formation of anonymized groups with low information loss, through an efficient linear-time heuristic. We show experimentally, using real-life data sets, that all our methods clearly outperform existing state of the art. Among the proposed techniques, NN-search yields superior data utility compared to the band matrix transformation, but incurs higher computational overhead. The data transformation based on Gray code sorting performs best in terms of both data utility and execution time. © 2006 IEEE.

Good intentions gone awry? Effects of weight-related social control on health and well-being.

Science.gov (United States)

Brunson, Julie A; Overup, Camilla S; Nguyen, Mai-Ly; Novak, Sarah A; Smith, C Veronica

2014-01-01

A negative body image has been associated with a variety of negative health and well-being outcomes. Social pressures from others, in the form of weight-related social control, may serve to exacerbate this effect, especially for college-aged women. Undergraduate students (N=399) completed a variety of questionnaires assessing weight-related social control, well-being, and diet and exercise behaviors. The results suggest that weight is associated with a variety of negative health and well-being outcomes and particularly for women, weight-related social control is also associated with these negative effects. In addition, men of higher body mass indexes (BMIs) or higher self-perceived weight did not experience negative health and well-being outcomes to the same degree that overweight women did. Parents in particular seem to instigate weight-related social control to change students' diet and exercise behaviors. These results help clarify the effects of weight-related social control in a college population, where weight may be especially important. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influence of birth weight on differences in infant mortality by social class and legitimacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Leon, D A

1991-01-01

OBJECTIVE--To investigate the influence of birth weight on the pronounced social class differences in infant mortality in Britain. DESIGN--Analysis of routine data on births and infant deaths. SETTING--England and Wales. SUBJECTS--All live births and infant deaths, 1983-5. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE--Mortality in infants by social class, birth weight, and legitimacy according to birth and death certificates. RESULTS--Neonatal and postneonatal mortality (deaths/1000 births) increased with social class. Neonatal and postneonatal mortality was 4.2/1000 and 2.3/1000 respectively for social class I and 6.8/1000 and 5.6/1000 respectively for social class V. Mortality was lower among births registered within marriage (postneonatal 3.5/1000; neonatal 5.2/1000) than among those jointly registered outside marriage (5.1/1000; 6.4/1000); mortality was highest in those solely registered outside marriage (7.2/1000; 7.0/1000). For neonatal mortality the effect of social class varied with birth weight. Social class had little effect on neonatal mortality in low birthweight babies and increasing effect in heavier babies. For postneonatal mortality the effect of social class was similar for all birth weights and was almost as steep as for all birth weights combined. CONCLUSION--Birth weight mediates little of the effect of social class on postneonatal mortality. PMID:1954421

System for Anonymous Data Collection Based on Group Signature Scheme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David Troják

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with an anonymous data collection in the Internet of Things (IoT. the privacy and anonymity of the data source is important for many IoT applications, such as in agriculture, health, and automotive. the proposed data‑collection system provides anonymity for the data sources by applying a cooperation group scheme. the group scheme also provides a low power consumption. the system is built upon the Tor (The Onion Router anonymous network, which is a part of the Internet darknet. the proposed system was designed for the Android devices on the client side and for Java environment on the server side. We evaluated the anonymous data collection in a real‑use scenario that covers selected data acquisition (e.g. signal strength from smartphones triggered by their geographical location change. the results show that the proposed system provides the sufficient data source anonymity, an effective revocation, a low computational cost and a low overhead.

Anonymous Authorship Control for User-Generated Content

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suk-Bong LEE

2007-12-01

Full Text Available User-Generated Content (UGC is opening up new large market in content services, and more and more people are visiting web sites to share and enjoy UGCs. These trends make many authors to move into online. Authors want to conserve their authorship and expect to publish their UGC anonymously in cases. To meet the requirements, we propose a new authorship control model based on watermarking and metadata. Authors can embed their authorship into their UGC with identities or with anonym. Even though an author publishes his UGC anonymously, he can prove his authorship without unveiling his identity via 5 methods utilizing the proposed authorship model. The proposed model and methods need no TTP and are robust even based on fragile underlying watermarking scheme.

Vote to link: Recovering from misbehaving anonymous users

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lueks, W.; Everts, M.H.; Hoepman, J.H.

2016-01-01

Service providers are often reluctant to support anonymous access, because this makes it hard to deal with misbehaving users. Anonymous blacklisting and reputation systems can help prevent misbehaving users from causing more damage. However, by the time the user is blocked or has lost reputation,

Nursing lives in the blogosphere: A thematic analysis of anonymous online nursing narratives.

Science.gov (United States)

Castro, Aimee; Andrews, Gavin

2018-02-01

The aim of this study was to explore the work-life narratives of nurses through a thematic analysis of the nursing accounts they post in their publicly accessible, anonymous blogs. Many nurses participate on social media. Blogs have been advocated as a self-reflective tool in nursing practice, yet as far as the authors are aware, no previous studies have explored nurses' individual blogs for their potential to reveal nurses' perceptions of nursing work. The research design was qualitative description. Between May-August 2015, Internet search engines were used to discover lists of nursing blogs recommended by organizations representing nurses' interests. Recommended blogs were purposively sampled. Four anonymous blogs written by nurses from different nursing specialties met the sampling criteria. All 520 of their entries from 2014 were read and copied into NVivo 10, where an inductive coding process was followed. Three major themes arose in these nurses' online discussions of their work lives: they truly care about and value their nursing work, but they are feeling stressed and burnt out and they are using their anonymous blogs to share factors that frustrate them in their nursing work. Three main areas of frustration were revealed: teamwork problems, challenging patients and families, and management issues. Anonymous nursing blogs offer valuable, longitudinal insights into nurses' perceptions of their work lives. Nursing blogs should be further explored for ongoing insights into nurses' experiences of nursing work, as well as nurses' recommendations for addressing issues causing them to feel frustrated in their work environments. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses and Covert Collectives

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krause Hansen, Hans; Schoeneborn, Dennis

2015-01-01

Book review of: Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses and Covert Collectives: rethinking Organizations in the 21st Century, C. R. Scott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. 272 pp. £45.90. ISBN 9780804781381......Book review of: Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses and Covert Collectives: rethinking Organizations in the 21st Century, C. R. Scott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. 272 pp. £45.90. ISBN 9780804781381...

Property-Based Anonymous Attestation in Trusted Cloud Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhen-Hu Ning

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In the remote attestation on Trusted Computer (TC computing mode TCCP, the trusted computer TC has an excessive burden, and anonymity and platform configuration information security of computing nodes cannot be guaranteed. To overcome these defects, based on the research on and analysis of current schemes, we propose an anonymous proof protocol based on property certificate. The platform configuration information is converted by the matrix algorithm into the property certificate, and the remote attestation is implemented by trusted ring signature scheme based on Strong RSA Assumption. By the trusted ring signature scheme based on property certificate, we achieve the anonymity of computing nodes and prevent the leakage of platform configuration information. By simulation, we obtain the computational efficiency of the scheme. We also expand the protocol and obtain the anonymous attestation based on ECC. By scenario comparison, we obtain the trusted ring signature scheme based on RSA, which has advantages with the growth of the ring numbers.

A hidden service model based on HS-HS anonymous network

Science.gov (United States)

Meng, Yitong; Zhao, Xing; Fei, Jinlong; Zhu, Yuefei

2017-10-01

The Hidden Service provided by Tor anonymous network can effectively protect the anonymity and security of the Hidden server, this article through the analysis of the data packet structure of Tor, three jump transmission mechanism and link establishment protocol and Hidden Service communication process, in view of the Hidden node number too much, link building Service for too long and too redundant link problem. An improved hidden service model HS-HS is proposed that incorporating multiple transmission link and reuse, and at the same time will be important transit point for reuse protection link anonymity, through the ExperimenTor simulation environment test, verify the improved model of HS-HS can be more effective in guarantee anonymity and security, improve the overall efficiency of data transmission, to meet the needs of today's anonymous service.

The Latina Birth Weight Paradox: the Role of Subjective Social Status.

Science.gov (United States)

Fleuriet, Jill; Sunil, Thankam

2017-09-15

The purpose of this project was to quantitatively test differences in subjective social status scores between non-pregnant and pregnant women to determine the role of subjective social status in birth weight variation between Mexico-born and US-born Mexican-American women. Six hundred low-income pregnant and non-pregnant Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American women in south Texas were surveyed for subjective social status, depression, perceived social stress, parity, and pregnancy intendedness. Psychosocial health variables, parity, and pregnancy intendedness were included due to their significant associations with low birth weight. Pregnant women had higher subjective social status scores than non-pregnant women. The difference in scores between non-pregnant and pregnant women was smaller in Mexican immigrant women than Mexican-American women. Pregnancy intendedness did not influence subjective social status in pregnant women of either sample, but having children (parity) in both samples was associated with higher subjective social status scores. Among Mexican-American women, community subjective social status was correlated with levels of depressive symptoms and perceived social stress. Subjective social status, depression, and perceived social stress were not correlated among Mexican immigrant women. Our results suggest that incorporation into the USA influences maternal mental health vis-à-vis changes in how women of reproductive age think about themselves and their gender roles in relation to others. Theoretically, our work supports mixed-method approaches to document how culture change as a result of immigration may impact maternal and infant health. Future research should test whether the effect of subjective social status on birth weight occurs when subjective social status does not correlate with depression or stress.

Really not god: Secularization and pragmatism in Gamblers Anonymous.

Science.gov (United States)

Browne, B R

1994-09-01

The paper argues that despite maintaining the image of a twelve-step organization, the central theme of the history of Gamblers Anonymous (GA) in the United States is the increasing secularization of the program of the recovery. The paper documents the increasing secularization and pragmatism of Gamblers Anonymous, as reflected in key documents, despite the spiritual vision of its founding member. The author speculates on why Gamblers Anonymous took a secularized development path. Further research is called for.

Effectiveness of Social Media-based Interventions on Weight-related Behaviors and Body Weight Status: Review and Meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

An, Ruopeng; Ji, Mengmeng; Zhang, Sheng

2017-11-01

We reviewed scientific literature regarding the effectiveness of social media-based interventions about weight-related behaviors and body weight status. A keyword search were performed in May 2017 in the Clinical-Trials.gov, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science databases. We conducted a meta-analysis to estimate the pooled effect size of social media-based interventions on weight-related outcome measures. We identified 22 interventions from the keyword and reference search, including 12 randomized controlled trials, 6 pre-post studies and 3 cohort studies conducted in 9 countries during 2010-2016. The majority (N = 17) used Facebook, followed by Twitter (N = 4) and Instagram (N = 1). Intervention durations averaged 17.8 weeks with a mean sample size of 69. The meta-analysis showed that social media-based interventions were associated with a statistically significant, but clinically modest reduction of body weight by 1.01 kg, body mass index by 0.92 kg/m2, and waist circumstance by 2.65 cm, and an increase of daily number of steps taken by 1530. In the meta-regression there was no doseresponse effect with respect to intervention duration. The boom of social media provides an unprecedented opportunity to implement health promotion programs. Future interventions should make efforts to improve intervention scalability and effectiveness.

Anonymity in Peer-assisted CDNs: Inference Attacks and Mitigation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jia Yaoqi

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The peer-assisted CDN is a new content distribution paradigm supported by CDNs (e.g., Akamai, which enables clients to cache and distribute web content on behalf of a website. Peer-assisted CDNs bring significant bandwidth savings to website operators and reduce network latency for users. In this work, we show that the current designs of peer-assisted CDNs expose clients to privacy-invasive attacks, enabling one client to infer the set of browsed resources of another client. To alleviate this, we propose an anonymous peer-assisted CDN (APAC, which employs content delivery while providing initiator anonymity (i.e., hiding who sends the resource request and responder anonymity (i.e., hiding who responds to the request for peers. APAC can be a web service, compatible with current browsers and requiring no client-side changes. Our anonymity analysis shows that our APAC design can preserve a higher level of anonymity than state-of-the-art peer-assisted CDNs. In addition, our evaluation demonstrates that APAC can achieve desired performance gains.

Facebook’s Ugly Sisters: Anonymity and Abuse on Formspring and Ask.fm

OpenAIRE

Binns, Amy

2013-01-01

New question and answer websites Ask.fm and Formspring have brought highly specific and personal abuse to a new level amongst young people by providing easy anonymity to users within a circle of offline friendship groups culled from Facebook. Relatively unknown due to their unattractiveness to adults, these sites are growing rapidly and have already been associated with at least eight suicides amongst teenagers. \\ud \\ud Media educators at school level encouraging self-awareness of social medi...

Anonymity and Openness in Donor Conception: the New Danish Model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Herrmann, Janne Rothmar

2013-01-01

model in donor conception which offers women/couples a choice of anonymity or openness in donation.This paper is based on my talk on June 20, 2013 at London School of Economics at the conference “New Families and Genetic Identities: Developments in law, policy and research” organised by the Morgan...... bank is based in Denmark and consequently anonymous sperm is also exported abroad, even into jurisdictions where anonymity is banned illegal. This commentary traces the raison d’être of anonymity in Danish law, accounts for the legal framework for the internet sale of sperm and examines the new Danish...

Securing the anonymity of content providers in the World Wide Web

Science.gov (United States)

Demuth, Thomas; Rieke, Andreas

1999-04-01

Nowadays the World Wide Web (WWW) is an established service used by people all over the world. Most of them do not recognize the fact that they reveal plenty of information about themselves or their affiliation and computer equipment to the providers of web pages they connect to. As a result, a lot of services offer users to access web pages unrecognized or without risk of being backtracked, respectively. This kind of anonymity is called user or client anonymity. But on the other hand, an equivalent protection for content providers does not exist, although this feature is desirable for many situations in which the identity of a publisher or content provider shall be hidden. We call this property server anonymity. We will introduce the first system with the primary target to offer anonymity for providers of information in the WWW. Beside this property, it provides also client anonymity. Based on David Chaum's idea of mixes and in relation to the context of the WWW, we explain the term 'server anonymity' motivating the system JANUS which offers both client and server anonymity.

Effects of social contact and zygosity on 21-y weight change in male twins.

Science.gov (United States)

McCaffery, Jeanne M; Franz, Carol E; Jacobson, Kristen; Leahey, Tricia M; Xian, Hong; Wing, Rena R; Lyons, Michael J; Kremen, William S

2011-08-01

Recent evidence indicates that social contact is related to similarities in weight gain over time. However, no studies have examined this effect in a twin design, in which genetic and other environmental effects can also be estimated. We determined whether the frequency of social contact is associated with similarity in weight change from young adulthood (mean age: 20 y) to middle age (mean age: 41 y) in twins and quantified the percentage of variance in weight change attributable to social contact, genetic factors, and other environmental influences. Participants were 1966 monozygotic and 1529 dizygotic male twin pairs from the Vietnam-Era Twin Registry. Regression models tested whether frequency of social contact and zygosity predicted twin pair similarity in body mass index (BMI) change and weight change. Twin modeling was used to partition the percentage variance attributable to social contact, genetic, and other environmental effects. Twins gained an average of 3.99 BMI units, or 13.23 kg (29.11 lb), over 21 y. In regression models, both zygosity (P social contact (P change. In twin modeling, social contact between twins contributed 16% of the variance in BMI change (P change. Frequency of social contact significantly predicted twin pair similarity in BMI and weight change over 21 y, independent of zygosity and other shared environmental influences.

Anonymous birth law saves babies--optimization, sustainability and public awareness.

Science.gov (United States)

Grylli, Chryssa; Brockington, Ian; Fiala, Christian; Huscsava, Mercedes; Waldhoer, Thomas; Klier, Claudia M

2016-04-01

The aims of this study are to assess the impact of Austria's anonymous birth law from the time relevant statistical records are available and to evaluate the use of hatches versus anonymous hospital delivery. This study is a complete census of police-reported neonaticides (1975-2012) as well as anonymous births including baby hatches in Austria during 2002-2012. The time trends of neonaticide rates, anonymous births and baby hatches were analysed by means of Poisson and logistic regression model. Predicted and observed rates were derived and compared using a Bayesian Poisson regression model. Predicted numbers of neonaticides for the period of the active awareness campaign, 2002-2004, were more than three times larger than the observed number (p = 0.0067). Of the 365 women who benefitted from this legislation, only 11.5% chose to put their babies in a baby hatch. Since the law was introduced, a significant decreasing tendency of numbers of anonymous births (p = 047) was observed, while there was significant increase of neonaticide rates (p = 0.0001). The implementation of the anonymous delivery law is associated with a decrease in the number of police-reported neonaticides. The subsequent significantly decreasing numbers of anonymous births with an accompanying increase of neonaticides represents additional evidence for the effectiveness of the measure.

The social patterning of relative body weight and obesity in Denmark and Finland

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sarlio-Lähteenkorva, Sirpa; Lissau, Inge; Lahelma, Eero

2006-01-01

BACKGROUND: Relative body weight is typically inversely associated with social status in affluent societies but studies comparing the social patterning of relative body weight and obesity in different countries have only seldom been conducted. The aim of this study was to analyse and compare....... Relative weight was studied by using body mass index (BMI), and those with BMI > or =30 kg/m(2) were regarded as obese. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the social patterning of obesity in the pooled dataset. Two-variable interaction effects were tested separately. RESULTS: Compared...

Authentic Attributes with Fine-Grained Anonymity Protection

Science.gov (United States)

2000-01-01

registrations and ecommerce trans- Preprint - 2 Stuart G. Stubblebine, and Paul F. Syverson. Authentic Attributes with Fine-Grained Anonymity Protection...driver’s license and birth certi cate. When the registration process is complete, certi cates could be on a smart card that the customer is carrying. The...proof. At least initially, it might not be electronic, e.g., possession of a passport, of a driver’s license and birth certi cate, etc. Anonymous

Dominance Weighted Social Choice Functions for Group Recommendations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia ROSSI

2015-12-01

Full Text Available In travel domains, decision support systems provide support to tourists in the planning of their vacation. In particular, when the number of possible Points of Interest (POI to visit is large, the system should help tourists providing recommendations on the POI that could be more interesting for them. Since traveling is, usually, an activity that involves small groups of people, the system should take simultaneously into account the preferences of each group's member. At the same time, it also should model possible intra-group relationships, which can have an impact in the group decision-making process. In this paper, we model this problem as a multi-agent aggregation of preferences by using weighted social choice functions, whereas such weights are automatically evaluated by analyzing the interactions of the group's members on Online Social Networks.

What Does Anonymization Mean? DataSHIELD and the Need for Consensus on Anonymization Terminology.

Science.gov (United States)

Wallace, Susan E

2016-06-01

Anonymization is a recognized process by which identifiers can be removed from identifiable data to protect an individual's confidentiality and is used as a standard practice when sharing data in biomedical research. However, a plethora of terms, such as coding, pseudonymization, unlinked, and deidentified, have been and continue to be used, leading to confusion and uncertainty. This article shows that this is a historic problem and argues that such continuing uncertainty regarding the levels of protection given to data risks damaging initiatives designed to assist researchers conducting cross-national studies and sharing data internationally. DataSHIELD and the creation of a legal template are used as examples of initiatives that rely on anonymization, but where the inconsistency in terminology could hinder progress. More broadly, this article argues that there is a real possibility that there could be possible damage to the public's trust in research and the institutions that carry it out by relying on vague notions of the anonymization process. Research participants whose lack of clear understanding of the research process is compensated for by trusting those carrying out the research may have that trust damaged if the level of protection given to their data does not match their expectations. One step toward ensuring understanding between parties would be consistent use of clearly defined terminology used internationally, so that all those involved are clear on the level of identifiability of any particular set of data and, therefore, how that data can be accessed and shared.

School-based obesity policy, social capital, and gender differences in weight control behaviors.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Ling; Thomas, Breanca

2013-06-01

We examined the associations among school-based obesity policies, social capital, and adolescents' self-reported weight control behaviors, focusing on how the collective roles of community and adopted policies affect gender groups differently. We estimated state-level ecologic models using 1-way random effects seemingly unrelated regressions derived from panel data for 43 states from 1991 to 2009, which we obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. We used multiplicative interaction terms to assess how social capital moderates the effects of school-based obesity policies. School-based obesity policies in active communities were mixed in improving weight control behaviors. They increased both healthy and unhealthy weight control behaviors among boys but did not increase healthy weight control behaviors among girls. Social capital is an important contextual factor that conditions policy effectiveness in large contexts. Heterogeneous behavioral responses are associated with both school-based obesity policies and social capital. Building social capital and developing policy programs to balance outcomes for both gender groups may be challenging in managing childhood obesity.

Is it OK to be an Anonymous?

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Philip Serracino-Inglott

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Do the deviant acts carried out by the collective known as Anonymous qualify as vigilante activity, and if so, can they be justified? Addressing this question helps expose the difficulties of morally evaluating technologically enabled deviance. Anonymous is a complex, fluid actor but not as mysterious as popularly portrayed. Under a definition of vigilantism that includes reprobative punishment rather than violence as a key element, Anonymous are vigilantes. Many of its Ops can be justified in view of the mismatch between formal norm enforcement practice and Internet natives’ experience of it. Anons are more like eco-warriors than terrorists. While their actions are contentious, their force is framed in a vision of common good that is not unreasonable. Engaging with online deviants is shown to be a productive way of identifying the weaknesses in concepts underpinning moral evaluation of Internet-enabled phenomena.

A reciprocal framework for spatial K-anonymity

KAUST Repository

Ghinita, Gabriel; Zhao, Keliang; Papadias, Dimitris; Kalnis, Panos

2010-01-01

Spatial K-anonymity (SKA) exploits the concept of K-anonymity in order to protect the identity of users from location-based attacks. The main idea of SKA is to replace the exact location of a user U with an anonymizing spatial region (ASR) that contains at least K-1 other users, so that an attacker can pinpoint U with probability at most 1/K. Simply generating an ASR that includes K users does not guarantee SKA. Previous work defined the reciprocity property as a sufficient condition for SKA. However, the only existing reciprocal method, Hilbert Cloak, relies on a specialized data structure. In contrast, we propose a general framework for implementing reciprocal algorithms using any existing spatial index on the user locations. We discuss ASR construction methods with different tradeoffs on effectiveness (i.e., ASR size) and efficiency (i.e., construction cost). Then, we present case studies of applying our framework on top of two popular spatial indices (namely, R*-trees and Quad-trees). Finally, we consider the case where the attacker knows the query patterns of each user. The experimental results verify that our methods outperform Hilbert Cloak. Moreover, since we employ general-purpose spatial indices, the proposed system is not limited to anonymization, but supports conventional spatial queries as well. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A reciprocal framework for spatial K-anonymity

KAUST Repository

Ghinita, Gabriel

2010-05-01

Spatial K-anonymity (SKA) exploits the concept of K-anonymity in order to protect the identity of users from location-based attacks. The main idea of SKA is to replace the exact location of a user U with an anonymizing spatial region (ASR) that contains at least K-1 other users, so that an attacker can pinpoint U with probability at most 1/K. Simply generating an ASR that includes K users does not guarantee SKA. Previous work defined the reciprocity property as a sufficient condition for SKA. However, the only existing reciprocal method, Hilbert Cloak, relies on a specialized data structure. In contrast, we propose a general framework for implementing reciprocal algorithms using any existing spatial index on the user locations. We discuss ASR construction methods with different tradeoffs on effectiveness (i.e., ASR size) and efficiency (i.e., construction cost). Then, we present case studies of applying our framework on top of two popular spatial indices (namely, R*-trees and Quad-trees). Finally, we consider the case where the attacker knows the query patterns of each user. The experimental results verify that our methods outperform Hilbert Cloak. Moreover, since we employ general-purpose spatial indices, the proposed system is not limited to anonymization, but supports conventional spatial queries as well. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

AIB-OR: improving onion routing circuit construction using anonymous identity-based cryptosystems.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Changji; Shi, Dongyuan; Xu, Xilei

2015-01-01

The rapid growth of Internet applications has made communication anonymity an increasingly important or even indispensable security requirement. Onion routing has been employed as an infrastructure for anonymous communication over a public network, which provides anonymous connections that are strongly resistant to both eavesdropping and traffic analysis. However, existing onion routing protocols usually exhibit poor performance due to repeated encryption operations. In this paper, we first present an improved anonymous multi-receiver identity-based encryption (AMRIBE) scheme, and an improved identity-based one-way anonymous key agreement (IBOWAKE) protocol. We then propose an efficient onion routing protocol named AIB-OR that provides provable security and strong anonymity. Our main approach is to use our improved AMRIBE scheme and improved IBOWAKE protocol in onion routing circuit construction. Compared with other onion routing protocols, AIB-OR provides high efficiency, scalability, strong anonymity and fault tolerance. Performance measurements from a prototype implementation show that our proposed AIB-OR can achieve high bandwidths and low latencies when deployed over the Internet.

RESPECTING THE CONFIDENTIALITY AND ANONYMITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria OPREA

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Ethics, a philosophical discipline, formulates a set of principles that must be followed, in respect of good and truth, fundamental values of humanity. The world of scientific research, of all kinds, also obeys moral imperatives and principles and is called upon to answer to society not only in relation to the discoveries themselves but, above all, in relation to the possible destructive effects on man or his life environment. The researcher in the sphere of social sciences is more involved in the act of responsibility, the more the topic subject of the study is the individual, the social group, the social environment. He must rigorously follow the principles and requirements of fair, honest, objective studies that do not harm the dignity of the human being. In line with the ethical rigors of scientific research, the article aims to highlight some aspects of respecting the principle of confidentiality and anonymity in qualitative research in the field of sociology, with reference to the study of vulnerable groups in Arad County.

Traveling the Silk Road: A Measurement of a Large Anonymous Online Marketplace

Science.gov (United States)

2012-11-28

Silk Road, an anonymous, international online marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We gather...analysis of Silk Road, an anonymous, international on- line marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We...anonymity, Silk Road needs to also preserve payment anonymity. To that effect, Silk Road only supports Bitcoin (BTC, [30]) as a trading currency

A survey of anonymous peer-to-peer file-sharing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chothia, T.; Chatzikokolakis, K.; Enokido, T.; Yan, L.; Xiao, B.; Kim, D.; Dai, Y.S.; Yang, L.T.

2005-01-01

This paper provides a survey of searchable, peer-to-peer file-sharing systems that offer the user some form of anonymity. We start this survey by giving a brief description of the most popular methods of providing anonymous communication. These include the Ants protocol, Onion routing, Multicasting,

Persona: Network Layer Anonymity and Accountability for Next Generation Internet

Science.gov (United States)

Mallios, Yannis; Modi, Sudeep; Agarwala, Aditya; Johns, Christina

Individual privacy has become a major concern, due to the intrusive nature of the services and websites that collect increasing amounts of private information. One of the notions that can lead towards privacy protection is that of anonymity. Unfortunately, anonymity can also be maliciously exploited by attackers to hide their actions and identity. Thus some sort of accountability is also required. The current Internet has failed to provide both properties, as anonymity techniques are difficult to fully deploy and thus are easily attacked, while the Internet provides limited level of accountability. The Next Generation Internet (NGI) provides us with the opportunity to examine how these conflicting properties could be efficiently applied and thus protect users’ privacy while holding malicious users accountable. In this paper we present the design of a scheme, called Persona that can provide anonymity and accountability in the network layer of NGI. More specifically, our design requirements are to combine these two conflicting desires in a stateless manner within routers. Persona allows users to choose different levels of anonymity, while it allows the discovery of malicious nodes.

Academic freedom, public reactions, and anonymity.

Science.gov (United States)

Häyry, Matti

2014-05-01

Academic freedom can be defined as immunity against adverse reactions from the general public, designed to keep scholars unintimidated and productive even after they have published controversial ideas. Francesca Minerva claims that this notion of strict instrumental academic freedom is supported by Ronald Dworkin, and that anonymity would effectively defend the sphere of immunity implied by it. Against this, I argue that the idea defended by Minerva finds no support in the work by Dworkin referred to; that anonymity would not in most cases effectively protect the kind of immunity sought after; and that in some cases it would not even be desirable to protect scholars from public reactions to their controversial claims. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Our Anonymous Online Research Participants Are Not Always Anonymous: Is This a Problem?

Science.gov (United States)

Dawson, Phillip

2014-01-01

When educational research is conducted online, we sometimes promise our participants that they will be anonymous--but do we deliver on this promise? We have been warned since 1996 to be careful when using direct quotes in Internet research, as full-text web search engines make it easy to find chunks of text online. This paper details an empirical…

Structure and Anonymity of the Bitcoin Transaction Graph

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kay Hamacher

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The Bitcoin network of decentralized payment transactions has attracted a lot of attention from both Internet users and researchers in recent years. Bitcoin utilizes a peer-to-peer network to issue anonymous payment transactions between different users. In the currently used Bitcoin clients, the full transaction history is available at each node of the network to prevent double spending without the need for a central authority, forming a valuable source for empirical research on network structure, network dynamics, and the implied anonymity challenges, as well as guidance on the future evolution of complex payment systems. We found dynamical effects of which some increase anonymity while others decrease it. Most importantly, several parameters of the Bitcoin transaction graph seem to have become stationary over the last 12–18 months. We discuss the implications.

Effectiveness of Anonymization Methods in Preserving Patients' Privacy: A Systematic Literature Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Langarizadeh, Mostafa; Orooji, Azam; Sheikhtaheri, Abbas

2018-01-01

An ever growing for application of electronic health records (EHRs) has improved healthcare providers' communications, access to data for secondary use and promoted the quality of services. Patient's privacy has been changed to a great issue today since there are large loads of critical information in EHRs. Therefore, many privacy preservation techniques have been proposed and anonymization is a common one. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of anonymization in preserving patients' privacy. The articles published in the 2005-2016 were included. Pubmed, Cochrane, IEEE and ScienceDirect were searched with a variety of related keywords. Finally, 18 articles were included. In the present study, the relevant anonymization issues were investigated in four categories: secondary use of anonymized data, re-identification risk, anonymization effect on information extraction and inadequacy of current methods for different document types. The results revealed that though anonymization cannot reduce the risk of re-identification to zero, if implemented correctly, can manage to help preserve patient's privacy.

Alcoholics Anonymous and nursing. Lessons in holism and spiritual care.

Science.gov (United States)

McGee, E M

2000-03-01

Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) is a worldwide, million-member organization that has assisted countless alcoholics to achieve sobriety through a spiritual program of recovery from alcoholism. Based on spiritual principles known as the "Twelve Steps" and "Twelve Traditions," AA has provided a model for other recovery programs such as Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Gamblers Anonymous (GA), and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA). Recovery in AA appears to involve a process of self-transcendence. In recent years, nursing scholars have increasingly explored the concepts of self-transcendence and spirituality as they apply to nursing theory and practice. This article explores the roots and spiritual dimensions of 12-step recovery programs. It further explores the ways in which theoretical and clinical knowledge about the delivery of spiritual care interventions may be gained from an understanding of AA's spiritual approach to recovery.

On the Anonymity Risk of Time-Varying User Profiles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia Puglisi

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Websites and applications use personalisation services to profile their users, collect their patterns and activities and eventually use this data to provide tailored suggestions. User preferences and social interactions are therefore aggregated and analysed. Every time a user publishes a new post or creates a link with another entity, either another user, or some online resource, new information is added to the user profile. Exposing private data does not only reveal information about single users’ preferences, increasing their privacy risk, but can expose more about their network that single actors intended. This mechanism is self-evident in social networks where users receive suggestions based on their friends’ activities. We propose an information-theoretic approach to measure the differential update of the anonymity risk of time-varying user profiles. This expresses how privacy is affected when new content is posted and how much third-party services get to know about the users when a new activity is shared. We use actual Facebook data to show how our model can be applied to a real-world scenario.

Scalable and Anonymous Group Communication with MTor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Dong

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This paper presents MTor, a low-latency anonymous group communication system. We construct MTor as an extension to Tor, allowing the construction of multi-source multicast trees on top of the existing Tor infrastructure. MTor does not depend on an external service to broker the group communication, and avoids central points of failure and trust. MTor’s substantial bandwidth savings and graceful scalability enable new classes of anonymous applications that are currently too bandwidth-intensive to be viable through traditional unicast Tor communication-e.g., group file transfer, collaborative editing, streaming video, and real-time audio conferencing.

Using anonymized reflection to teach ethics: a pilot study.

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Kyle, Gaye

2008-01-01

Anonymized reflection was employed as an innovative way of teaching ethics in order to enhance students' ability in ethical decision making during a Care of the Dying Patient and Family' module. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from the first two student cohorts who experienced anonymized reflection ( n = 24). The themes identified were the richness and relevance of scenarios, small-group work and a team approach to teaching. Students indicated that they preferred this style of teaching. This finding was verified by a postal questionnaire conducted four months later. The conclusions drawn from this study suggest that using anonymized reflection is an effective method for teaching ethics to nurses and indicates that learning about ethical issues in this way reduces uncertainties.

Criminal offenses in gamblers anonymous and hospital treated pathological gamblers.

Science.gov (United States)

Blaszczynski, A P; McConaghy, N

1994-06-01

The purpose of this study was to compare the nature and prevalence of gambling and non-gambling related offenses in samples of pathological gamblers seeking behavioural treatment from a hospital-based program and those attending Gamblers Anonymous. A semi-structured interview schedule obtaining demographic data and details of the nature, frequency, and consequent legal action of criminal offenses committed was administered to 152 consecutive hospital treated pathological gamblers, and 154 Gamblers Anonymous attendees who volunteered to participate in the study. Of the total sample, 59% admitted a gambling-related offense, and 23% to a conviction. There was no difference in the proportion of hospital treated and Gamblers Anonymous subjects who offended. The most common gambling-related offenses were larceny, embezzlement and misappropriation. Gamblers committed a median of ten offenses over an average ten year period of pathological gambling with a median value of $ A 300(1) per offense. The median value for each non-gambling-related offense was $ A 130. Except for the significantly older mean age of Gamblers Anonymous subjects, hospital treated gamblers did not differ from Gamblers Anonymous attenders on relevant demographic features or parameters of gambling behaviour. Findings were interpreted to suggest a possible causal link between pathological gambling and the commission of non-violent property offenses.

Conducting Anonymous, Incentivized, Online Surveys With Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents: Lessons Learned From a National Polyvictimization Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Sterzing, Paul R; Gartner, Rachel E; McGeough, Briana L

2018-03-01

Sexual and gender minority adolescents represent an understudied and hard-to-reach population who experience higher rates of mental and behavioral health problems in comparison to their cisgender, heterosexual peers. Online surveys and the proliferation of Internet-connected devices among adolescents offer an exciting opportunity for researchers to begin addressing research gaps and past methodological limitations with these hard-to-reach populations. The purpose of this article is to provide guidance to researchers who are designing and implementing anonymous, incentivized, online surveys by examining the following critical domains-(a) recruitment and engagement: means of leveraging social media and videos to recruit and engage a more nationally representative sample; (b) safety and protection: strategies for administering informed consent and protecting participant anonymity and well-being; and (c) data integrity: mechanisms to detect dishonest and repeat responders. To facilitate discussion of these aims, concrete examples are used from SpeakOut-a 3-year, national study funded by the National Institute of Justice that utilized an anonymous, incentivized, online survey with a large sample of sexual and gender minority adolescents ( N = 1,177) to identify the prevalence, incidence, and correlates of polyvictimization. The article concludes with lessons learned from this national study and recommendations for technological innovations and future research that will strengthen the utility of anonymous, incentivized, online surveys to study sexual and gender minority adolescents and other hard-to-reach populations.

Enabling genomic-phenomic association discovery without sacrificing anonymity.

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Raymond D Heatherly

Full Text Available Health information technologies facilitate the collection of massive quantities of patient-level data. A growing body of research demonstrates that such information can support novel, large-scale biomedical investigations at a fraction of the cost of traditional prospective studies. While healthcare organizations are being encouraged to share these data in a de-identified form, there is hesitation over concerns that it will allow corresponding patients to be re-identified. Currently proposed technologies to anonymize clinical data may make unrealistic assumptions with respect to the capabilities of a recipient to ascertain a patients identity. We show that more pragmatic assumptions enable the design of anonymization algorithms that permit the dissemination of detailed clinical profiles with provable guarantees of protection. We demonstrate this strategy with a dataset of over one million medical records and show that 192 genotype-phenotype associations can be discovered with fidelity equivalent to non-anonymized clinical data.

On the performance of social network and likelihood-based expert weighting schemes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cooke, Roger M.; ElSaadany, Susie; Huang Xinzheng

2008-01-01

Using expert judgment data from the TU Delft's expert judgment database, we compare the performance of different weighting schemes, namely equal weighting, performance-based weighting from the classical model [Cooke RM. Experts in uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1991.], social network (SN) weighting and likelihood weighting. The picture that emerges with regard to SN weights is rather mixed. SN theory does not provide an alternative to performance-based combination of expert judgments, since the statistical accuracy of the SN decision maker is sometimes unacceptably low. On the other hand, it does outperform equal weighting in the majority of cases. The results here, though not overwhelmingly positive, do nonetheless motivate further research into social interaction methods for nominating and weighting experts. Indeed, a full expert judgment study with performance measurement requires an investment in time and effort, with a view to securing external validation. If high confidence in a comparable level of validation can be obtained by less intensive methods, this would be very welcome, and would facilitate the application of structured expert judgment in situations where the resources for a full study are not available. Likelihood weights are just as resource intensive as performance-based weights, and the evidence presented here suggests that they are inferior to performance-based weights with regard to those scoring variables which are optimized in performance weights (calibration and information). Perhaps surprisingly, they are also inferior with regard to likelihood. Their use is further discouraged by the fact that they constitute a strongly improper scoring rule

Reexamination of the Association between Anonymity and Self-Interested Unethical Behavior in Adults

Science.gov (United States)

Nogami, Tatsuya

2009-01-01

The well-established notion that the frequency of self-interested unethical behavior increases among anonymous people was reexamined employing a more strict definition of anonymity, voluntary unethical behavior, and adult individuals. Anonymity was defined as nonassociability of the participant's traits with respect to unethical behavior. The…

Privacy preserving data anonymization of spontaneous ADE reporting system dataset.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Wen-Yang; Yang, Duen-Chuan; Wang, Jie-Teng

2016-07-18

To facilitate long-term safety surveillance of marketing drugs, many spontaneously reporting systems (SRSs) of ADR events have been established world-wide. Since the data collected by SRSs contain sensitive personal health information that should be protected to prevent the identification of individuals, it procures the issue of privacy preserving data publishing (PPDP), that is, how to sanitize (anonymize) raw data before publishing. Although much work has been done on PPDP, very few studies have focused on protecting privacy of SRS data and none of the anonymization methods is favorable for SRS datasets, due to which contain some characteristics such as rare events, multiple individual records, and multi-valued sensitive attributes. We propose a new privacy model called MS(k, θ (*) )-bounding for protecting published spontaneous ADE reporting data from privacy attacks. Our model has the flexibility of varying privacy thresholds, i.e., θ (*) , for different sensitive values and takes the characteristics of SRS data into consideration. We also propose an anonymization algorithm for sanitizing the raw data to meet the requirements specified through the proposed model. Our algorithm adopts a greedy-based clustering strategy to group the records into clusters, conforming to an innovative anonymization metric aiming to minimize the privacy risk as well as maintain the data utility for ADR detection. Empirical study was conducted using FAERS dataset from 2004Q1 to 2011Q4. We compared our model with four prevailing methods, including k-anonymity, (X, Y)-anonymity, Multi-sensitive l-diversity, and (α, k)-anonymity, evaluated via two measures, Danger Ratio (DR) and Information Loss (IL), and considered three different scenarios of threshold setting for θ (*) , including uniform setting, level-wise setting and frequency-based setting. We also conducted experiments to inspect the impact of anonymized data on the strengths of discovered ADR signals. With all three

Determining the relative importance of the mechanisms of behavior change within Alcoholics Anonymous: a multiple mediator analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, John F; Hoeppner, Bettina; Stout, Robert L; Pagano, Maria

2012-02-01

Evidence indicates that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) participation reduces relapse risk but less is known about the mechanisms through which AA confers this benefit. Initial studies indicate self-efficacy, negative affect, adaptive social networks and spiritual practices are mediators of this effect, but because these have been tested in isolation, their relative importance remains elusive. This study tested multiple mediators simultaneously to help determine the most influential pathways. Prospective, statistically controlled, naturalistic investigation examined the extent to which these previously identified mechanisms mediated AA attendance effects on alcohol outcomes controlling for baseline outcome values, mediators, treatment, and other confounders. Nine clinical sites within the United States. Adults (n = 1726) suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD) initially enrolled in a randomized study with two arms: aftercare (n = 774); and out-patient (n = 952) comparing three out-patient treatments (Project MATCH). AA attendance during treatment; mediators at 9 months; and outcomes [percentage of days abstinent (PDA) and drinks per drinking day (DDD)] at 15 months. Among out-patients the effect of AA attendance on alcohol outcomes was explained primarily by adaptive social network changes and increases in social abstinence self-efficacy. Among more impaired aftercare patients, in addition to mediation through adaptive network changes and increases in social self-efficacy, AA lead to better outcomes through increasing spirituality/religiosity and by reducing negative affect. The degree to which mediators explained the relationship between AA and outcomes ranged from 43% to 67%. While Alcoholics Anonymous facilitates recovery by mobilizing several processes simultaneously, it is changes in social factors which appear to be of primary importance. © 2011 The Authors, Addiction © 2011 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Dysfunctional involvement of emotion and reward brain regions on social decision making in excess weight adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Verdejo-García, Antonio; Verdejo-Román, Juan; Rio-Valle, Jacqueline S; Lacomba, Juan A; Lagos, Francisco M; Soriano-Mas, Carles

2015-01-01

Obese adolescents suffer negative social experiences, but no studies have examined whether obesity is associated with dysfunction of the social brain or whether social brain abnormalities relate to disadvantageous traits and social decisions. We aimed at mapping functional activation differences in the brain circuitry of social decision making in adolescents with excess versus normal weight, and at examining whether these separate patterns correlate with reward/punishment sensitivity, disordered eating features, and behavioral decisions. In this fMRI study, 80 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old were classified in two groups based on age adjusted body mass index (BMI) percentiles: normal weight (n = 44, BMI percentiles 5th-84th) and excess weight (n = 36, BMI percentile ≥ 85th). Participants were scanned while performing a social decision-making task (ultimatum game) in which they chose to "accept" or "reject" offers to split monetary stakes made by another peer. Offers varied in fairness (Fair vs. Unfair) but in all cases "accepting" meant both players win the money, whereas "rejecting" meant both lose it. We showed that adolescents with excess weight compared to controls display significantly decreased activation of anterior insula, anterior cingulate, and midbrain during decisions about Unfair versus Fair offers. Moreover, excess weight subjects show lower sensitivity to reward and more maturity fears, which correlate with insula activation. Indeed, blunted insula activation accounted for the relationship between maturity fears and acceptance of unfair offers. Excess weight adolescents have diminished activation of brain regions essential for affective tracking of social decision making, which accounts for the association between maturity fears and social decisions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

An outcome study of Gamblers Anonymous.

Science.gov (United States)

Stewart, R M; Brown, R I

1988-02-01

Retrospective and prospective studies of a total sample of 232 attenders at groups of Gamblers Anonymous suggest that total abstinence from gambling was maintained by 8% of all comers at one year from first attendance and by 7% at two years.

Obesity: locus of control, body image, weight loss, and age-at-onset.

Science.gov (United States)

Wineman, N M

1980-01-01

In a retrospective investigation designed to measure locus of control, body image, and weight loss in Overeaters Anonymous members who had childhood, adolescence, or adulthood onset of obesity, 116 subjects were grouped according to age at onset of obesity and the year they joined OA. A convenience, volunteer sample of OA members completed a demographic data questionnaire, Rotter's Social Reaction. Inventory, and Secord and Jourard's Body Cathexis Scale. Significant overweight percentage differences were not found when the three age-at-onset groups were compared. Significant differences emerged, however, for adolescent-onset group persons who were categorized as "old" members; they had a larger weight loss and were more satisfied with their body image. A positive linear relationship between greater perception of internal control and a good body image was found in the entire adulthood-onset group. Weight loss and good body image of the oldest adolescent-onset group probably was the outcome of their association with a self-help group i.e., OA. Assessment of developmental issues related to the time of initial weight gain may indicate which treatment regime would be most effective.

A Survey of Weight Perception and Social Desirability of Obesity ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

BACKGROUND: Obesity and its complications are emergent health challenges in developing countries including Nigeria. We determined the concordance of perceived with measured weight and assessed the social desirability of obesity among adults in Kano metropolis in northern Nigeria. METHODS: A cross sectional ...

Secure and Efficient Anonymous Authentication Scheme in Global Mobility Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun-Sub Kim

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In 2012, Mun et al. pointed out that Wu et al.’s scheme failed to achieve user anonymity and perfect forward secrecy and disclosed the passwords of legitimate users. And they proposed a new enhancement for anonymous authentication scheme. However, their proposed scheme has vulnerabilities that are susceptible to replay attack and man-in-the-middle attack. It also incurs a high overhead in the database. In this paper, we examine the vulnerabilities in the existing schemes and the computational overhead incurred in the database. We then propose a secure and efficient anonymous authentication scheme for roaming service in global mobility network. Our proposed scheme is secure against various attacks, provides mutual authentication and session key establishment, and incurs less computational overhead in the database than Mun et al.'s scheme.

Anonymous voting for multi-dimensional CV quantum system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shi Rong-Hua; Xiao Yi; Shi Jin-Jing; Guo Ying; Lee, Moon-Ho

2016-01-01

We investigate the design of anonymous voting protocols, CV-based binary-valued ballot and CV-based multi-valued ballot with continuous variables (CV) in a multi-dimensional quantum cryptosystem to ensure the security of voting procedure and data privacy. The quantum entangled states are employed in the continuous variable quantum system to carry the voting information and assist information transmission, which takes the advantage of the GHZ-like states in terms of improving the utilization of quantum states by decreasing the number of required quantum states. It provides a potential approach to achieve the efficient quantum anonymous voting with high transmission security, especially in large-scale votes. (paper)

Associations between body weight and depression, social phobia, insomnia, and self-esteem among Taiwanese adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Jia-In; Yen, Cheng-Fang

2014-12-01

The aims of this cross-sectional study were to examine the associations between body weight and mental health indicators including depression, social phobia, insomnia, and self-esteem among Taiwanese adolescents in Grades 7-12. The body mass index (BMI) of 5254 adolescents was calculated based on self-reported weight and height measurements. Body weight status was determined by the age- and gender-specific International Obesity Task Force reference tables. By using participants of average weight as the reference group, the association between body weight status (underweight, overweight, and obesity) and mental health indicators (depression, social phobia, insomnia, and self-esteem) were examined by using multiple regression analysis. The possible moderating effects of sociodemographic characteristics on the association were also examined. After controlling for the effects of sociodemographic characteristics, both overweight (p self-esteem than did those of average weight; however, no significant differences in depression, social phobia, or insomnia were found between those who were overweight/obese and those of average weight. No significant differences in the four mental health indicators were found between those who were underweight and those of average weight. Sociodemographic characteristics had no moderating effect on the association between body weight and mental health indicators. In conclusion, mental health and school professionals must take the association between overweight/obesity and self-esteem into consideration when approaching the issue of mental health among adolescents. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Taiwan.

The anonymity paradox in patient engagement: reputation, risk and web-based public feedback.

Science.gov (United States)

Speed, Ewen; Davison, Charlie; Gunnell, Caroline

2016-06-01

The UK National Health Service (NHS) has long espoused patient and public engagement. Recent years have seen increasing use of internet-based methods of collecting feedback about patient experience and public and staff views about NHS services and priorities. Often hailed as a means of facilitating participative democratic patient engagement, these processes raise a number of complex issues. A key aspect of it is the opportunity for comment to be made anonymously. Our research reveals an anonymity paradox whereby patients clearly demonstrate a perception that anonymity is a prerequisite for effective use of these feedback processes, whereas professionals demonstrate a perception that patient anonymity is a barrier to effective use. The risks of anonymity are constructed very differently by patients and professionals. Patient concerns around anonymity were not motivated by a general concern about a loss of privacy, but more that a positive identification might compromise future care. For professionals, concerns were voiced more around risks of reputational damage for specific practitioners or practices (in that anyone could say anything) and also that this anonymous feedback was available publicly and that it might go against the medical opinion of the professional. These concerns pointed to important differences in perceptions of patient and professional vulnerability. In the qualitative analysis that follows the key finding was that while anonymity makes service users feel less vulnerable, it can have the opposite effect on managers and clinical staff. This raises important implications for the use and utility of internet-based methods of collecting patient feedback. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

BIX Certificates: Cryptographic Tokens for Anonymous Transactions Based on Certificates Public Ledger

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sead Muftic

2016-12-01

Full Text Available With the widespread use of Internet, Web, and mobile technologies, a new category of applications and transactions that requires anonymity is gaining increased interest and importance. Examples of such new applications are innovative payment systems, digital notaries, electronic voting, documents sharing, electronic auctions, medical applications, and many others. In addition to anonymity, these applications and transactions also require standard security services: identification, authentication, and authorization of users and protection of their transactions. Providing those services in combination with anonymity is an especially challenging issue, because all security services require explicit user identification and authentication. To solve this issue and enable applications with security and also anonymity we introduce a new type of cryptographically encapsulated objects called BIX certificates. “BIX” is an abbreviation for “Blockchain Information Exchange.” Their purpose is equivalent to X.509 certificates: to support security services for users and transactions, but also enhanced with anonymity. This paper describes the structure and attributes of BIX certificate objects and all related protocols for their creation, distribution, and use. The BIX Certification Infrastructure (BCI as a distributed public ledger is also briefly described.

Security Analysis and Improvement of an Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Roaming Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Youngsook Lee

2014-01-01

Full Text Available An anonymous authentication scheme for roaming services in global mobility networks allows a mobile user visiting a foreign network to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the foreign-network operator in an anonymous manner. In this work, we revisit He et al.’s anonymous authentication scheme for roaming services and present previously unpublished security weaknesses in the scheme: (1 it fails to provide user anonymity against any third party as well as the foreign agent, (2 it cannot protect the passwords of mobile users due to its vulnerability to an offline dictionary attack, and (3 it does not achieve session-key security against a man-in-the-middle attack. We also show how the security weaknesses of He et al.’s scheme can be addressed without degrading the efficiency of the scheme.

Trajectories of childhood weight gain: the relative importance of local environment versus individual social and early life factors.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Megan A Carter

Full Text Available To determine the association between local environmental factors with child weight status in a longitudinal study, using a semi-parametric, group-based method, while also considering social and early life factors.Standardized, directly measured BMI from 4-10 y of age, and group-based trajectory modeling (PROC TRAJ were used to estimate developmental trajectories of weight change in a Québec birth cohort (n = 1,566. Associations between the weight trajectories and living location, social cohesion, disorder, and material and social deprivation were estimated after controlling for social and early life factors.FOUR WEIGHT TRAJECTORY GROUPS WERE ESTIMATED: low-increasing (9.7%; low-medium, accelerating (36.2%; medium-high, increasing (43.0%; and high-stable (11.1%. In the low-increasing and medium-high trajectory groups, living in a semi-urban area was inversely related to weight, while living in a rural area was positively related to weight in the high-stable group. Disorder was inversely related to weight in the low-increasing group only. Other important risk factors for high-stable weight included obesity status of the mother, smoking during pregnancy, and overeating behaviors.In this study, associations between local environment factors and weight differed by trajectory group. Early life factors appear to play a more consistent role in weight status. Further work is needed to determine the influence of place on child weight.

Bayesian modeling of consumer behavior in the presence of anonymous visits

Science.gov (United States)

Novak, Julie Esther

Tailoring content to consumers has become a hallmark of marketing and digital media, particularly as it has become easier to identify customers across usage or purchase occasions. However, across a wide variety of contexts, companies find that customers do not consistently identify themselves, leaving a substantial fraction of anonymous visits. We develop a Bayesian hierarchical model that allows us to probabilistically assign anonymous sessions to users. These probabilistic assignments take into account a customer's demographic information, frequency of visitation, activities taken when visiting, and times of arrival. We present two studies, one with synthetic and one with real data, where we demonstrate improved performance over two popular practices (nearest-neighbor matching and deleting the anonymous visits) due to increased efficiency and reduced bias driven by the non-ignorability of which types of events are more likely to be anonymous. Using our proposed model, we avoid potential bias in understanding the effect of a firm's marketing on its customers, improve inference about the total number of customers in the dataset, and provide more precise targeted marketing to both previously observed and unobserved customers.

Can anonymous posters on medical forums be reidentified?

Science.gov (United States)

Bobicev, Victoria; Sokolova, Marina; El Emam, Khaled; Jafer, Yasser; Dewar, Brian; Jonker, Elizabeth; Matwin, Stan

2013-10-03

Participants in medical forums often reveal personal health information about themselves in their online postings. To feel comfortable revealing sensitive personal health information, some participants may hide their identity by posting anonymously. They can do this by using fake identities, nicknames, or pseudonyms that cannot readily be traced back to them. However, individual writing styles have unique features and it may be possible to determine the true identity of an anonymous user through author attribution analysis. Although there has been previous work on the authorship attribution problem, there has been a dearth of research on automated authorship attribution on medical forums. The focus of the paper is to demonstrate that character-based author attribution works better than word-based methods in medical forums. The goal was to build a system that accurately attributes authorship of messages posted on medical forums. The Authorship Attributor system uses text analysis techniques to crawl medical forums and automatically correlate messages written by the same authors. Authorship Attributor processes unstructured texts regardless of the document type, context, and content. The messages were labeled by nicknames of the forum participants. We evaluated the system's performance through its accuracy on 6000 messages gathered from 2 medical forums on an in vitro fertilization (IVF) support website. Given 2 lists of candidate authors (30 and 50 candidates, respectively), we obtained an F score accuracy in detecting authors of 75% to 80% on messages containing 100 to 150 words on average, and 97.9% on longer messages containing at least 300 words. Authorship can be successfully detected in short free-form messages posted on medical forums. This raises a concern about the meaningfulness of anonymous posting on such medical forums. Authorship attribution tools can be used to warn consumers wishing to post anonymously about the likelihood of their identity being

Effects of a weight management program delivered by social media on weight and metabolic syndrome risk factors in overweight and obese adults: A randomised controlled trial.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Monica Jane

Full Text Available The aim of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of using social media to augment the delivery of, and provide support for, a weight management program delivered to overweight and obese individuals during a twenty four week intervention.Participants randomly divided into either one of two intervention groups or a control group. The two intervention groups were instructed to follow identical weight-management program. One group received the program within a Facebook group, along with a support network with the group, and the other intervention group received the same program in a booklet. The control group was given standard care. Participants' weight and other metabolic syndrome risk factors were measured at baseline and at weeks 6, 12, 18 and 24.The Facebook Group reported a 4.8% reduction in initial weight, significant compared to the CG only (p = 0.01, as well as numerically greater improvements in body mass index, waist circumference, fat mass, lean mass, and energy intake compared to the Pamphlet Group and the Control Group.These results demonstrate the potential of social media to assist overweight and obese individuals with respect to dietary and physical activity modifications for weight management, and justify further research into the inclusion of social media in clinical weight management programs. It is anticipated that social media will provide an invaluable resource for health professionals, as a low maintenance vehicle for communicating with patients, as well as a source of social support and information sharing for individuals undergoing lifestyle modifications.

Associations between body weight and depression, social phobia, insomnia, and self-esteem among Taiwanese adolescents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jia-In Lee

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The aims of this cross-sectional study were to examine the associations between body weight and mental health indicators including depression, social phobia, insomnia, and self-esteem among Taiwanese adolescents in Grades 7–12. The body mass index (BMI of 5254 adolescents was calculated based on self-reported weight and height measurements. Body weight status was determined by the age- and gender-specific International Obesity Task Force reference tables. By using participants of average weight as the reference group, the association between body weight status (underweight, overweight, and obesity and mental health indicators (depression, social phobia, insomnia, and self-esteem were examined by using multiple regression analysis. The possible moderating effects of sociodemographic characteristics on the association were also examined. After controlling for the effects of sociodemographic characteristics, both overweight (p < 0.05 and obese adolescents (p < 0.001 had a lower level of self-esteem than did those of average weight; however, no significant differences in depression, social phobia, or insomnia were found between those who were overweight/obese and those of average weight. No significant differences in the four mental health indicators were found between those who were underweight and those of average weight. Sociodemographic characteristics had no moderating effect on the association between body weight and mental health indicators. In conclusion, mental health and school professionals must take the association between overweight/obesity and self-esteem into consideration when approaching the issue of mental health among adolescents.

Anonymity and Electronics: Adapting Preparation for Radiology Resident Examination.

Science.gov (United States)

Chapman, Teresa; Reid, Janet R; O'Conner, Erin E

2017-06-01

Diagnostic radiology resident assessment has evolved from a traditional oral examination to computerized testing. Teaching faculty struggle to reconcile the differences between traditional teaching methods and residents' new preferences for computerized testing models generated by new examination styles. We aim to summarize the collective experiences of senior residents at three different teaching hospitals who participated in case review sessions using a computer-based, interactive, anonymous teaching tool, rather than the Socratic method. Feedback was collected from radiology residents following participation in a senior resident case review session using Nearpod, which allows residents to anonymously respond to the teaching material. Subjective resident feedback was uniformly enthusiastic. Ninety percent of residents favor a case-based board review incorporating multiple-choice questions, and 94% favor an anonymous response system. Nearpod allows for inclusion of multiple-choice questions while also providing direct feedback to the teaching faculty, helping to direct the instruction and clarify residents' gaps in knowledge before the Core Examination. Copyright © 2017 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Browsing the Internet: good-bye anonymity!

CERN Multimedia

Computer Security Team

2012-01-01

Do you consider browsing the Internet to be your private business? When visiting random web-sites, how far do you assume you are anonymous? Would it matter to you that Google or Facebook can profile your browsing behaviour in order to better target you with advertisements? Did you notice that you already get targeted ads when you are logged on to Google or Facebook even if you are visiting completely different websites? If matters to you, note that browsing anonymously on the Internet is far from easy.   When you are connected to the Internet, you give away a variety of information: your PC’s IP address, some browser settings like language or screen size, and, probably, your login information. So how private is private? You might argue that your current IP address has been picked from a pool of addresses and therefore regularly changes, so it does not necessarily always pinpoint you. On the other hand, with the dawn of IPv6 there is no need any more for shared IP addresses as the...

Anonymous Web Browsing and Hosting

OpenAIRE

MANOJ KUMAR; ANUJ RANI

2013-01-01

In today’s high tech environment every organization, individual computer users use internet for accessing web data. To maintain high confidentiality and security of the data secure web solutions are required. In this paper we described dedicated anonymous web browsing solutions which makes our browsing faster and secure. Web application which play important role for transferring our secret information including like email need more and more security concerns. This paper also describes that ho...

HOP: Achieving Efficient Anonymity in MANETs by Combining HIP, OLSR, and Pseudonyms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Campos Javier

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Offering secure and anonymous communications in mobile ad hoc networking environments is essential to achieve confidence and privacy, thus promoting widespread adoption of this kind of networks. In addition, some minimum performance levels must be achieved for any solution to be practical and become widely adopted. In this paper, we propose and implement HOP, a novel solution based on cryptographic Host Identity Protocol (HIP that offers security and user-level anonymity in MANET environments while maintaining good performance levels. In particular, we introduce enhancements to the authentication process to achieve Host Identity Tag (HIT relationship anonymity, along with source/destination HIT anonymity when combined with multihoming. Afterward we detail how we integrate our improved version of HIP with the OLSR routing protocol to achieve efficient support for pseudonyms. We implemented our proposal in an experimental testbed, and the results obtained show that performance levels achieved are quite good, and that the integration with OLSR is achieved with a low overhead.

Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School: Banishing Anonymity

Science.gov (United States)

Principal Leadership, 2010

2010-01-01

It is no accident that the staff at Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School adopted a central tenet of "Breaking Ranks in the Middle"--to banish anonymity by creating a personalized learning environment for all of its students. The school was created six years ago when the four middle schools in Henry County, VA, were consolidated into two…

Achieving sink node anonymity in tactical wireless sensor networks using a reactive routing protocol

Science.gov (United States)

2017-06-01

node anonymity, base station anonymity, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET), Lightweight Ad hoc On-Demand – Next Generation ... Generation (LOADng) reactive-routing protocol to achieve anonymity. This modified protocol prevents an attacker from identifying the sink node without...within the constraints of WSN communication protocols, specifically IEEE 802.15.4. We use and modify the Lightweight Ad hoc On-Demand – Next Generation

Social networks for improving healthy weight loss behaviors for overweight and obese adults: A randomized clinical trial of the social pounds off digitally (Social POD) mobile app.

Science.gov (United States)

Hales, Sarah; Turner-McGrievy, Gabrielle M; Wilcox, Sara; Fahim, Arjang; Davis, Rachel E; Huhns, Michael; Valafar, Homayoun

2016-10-01

To test the efficacy of a weight loss mobile app based on recommender systems and developed by experts in health promotion and computer science to target social support and self-monitoring of diet, physical activity (PA), and weight (Social POD app), compared to a commercially available diet and PA tracking app (standard). Overweight adults [N=51] were recruited and randomly assigned to either the experimental group [n=26; theory-based podcasts (TBP)+Social POD app] or the comparison group (n=25; TBP+standard app). The Social POD app issued notifications to encourage users to self-monitor and send theory-based messages to support users who had not self-monitored in the previous 48h. Independent samples t-test were used to examine group differences in kilograms lost and change in BMI. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze secondary outcomes while controlling for baseline values. Participant attrition was 12% (n=3 experimental and n=3 comparison). Experimental group participants lost significantly more weight (-5.3kg, CI: -7.5, -3.0) than comparison group (-2.23kg, CI: -3.6, -1.0; d=0.8, r=0.4, p=0.02) and had a greater reduction in BMI (p=0.02). While there were significant differences in positive outcome expectations between groups (p=0.04) other secondary outcomes (e.g., caloric intake and social support) were not significant. Use of the Social POD app resulted in significantly greater weight loss than use of a commercially available tracking app. This mobile health intervention has the potential to be widely disseminated to reduce the risk of chronic disease associated with overweight and obesity. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Use of social networking sites by parents of very low birth weight infants: experiences and the potential of a dedicated site.

Science.gov (United States)

Gabbert, Tatjana I; Metze, Boris; Bührer, Christoph; Garten, Lars

2013-12-01

The objective of this study was to study the experiences of parents of preterm infants who use social networking sites and the potential of such sites for gathering information and facilitating personal exchange. An anonymous self-reporting questionnaire was administered to parents of infants below 1,500 g birth weight born between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010 in two tertiary neonatal intensive care units. Of the 278 families who were sent a questionnaire, 141 responded; 53.6 % of respondents claimed to be presently members of online social networking sites. However, only 10.7 and 18.6 % used the Internet to exchange information about their infants during the NICU stay and after discharge, respectively. Most (64.0 %) responding parents considered that currently available commercial Internet sites inadequately met their need to exchange information as parents of preterm infants. Overall, 79.1 % of respondents reported that they would be interested in joining a native-language online networking site providing (1) general information on prematurity, (2) explanations of abbreviations commonly used in a hospital setting, and (3) details of common medical problems and the treatment thereof, including the availability of local therapists and follow-up services. Also, parents wanted to engage in personal exchange online not only with other parents but also with medical staff. The support of parents of hospitalized preterm infants by neonatal nurses and doctors could be extended by developing an expert-controlled, online networking site providing reliable and updated information and facilitating personal exchange among parents.

Hacktivism 1-2-3: how privacy enhancing technologies change the face of anonymous hacktivism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Balázs Bodó

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This short essay explores how the notion of hacktivism changes due to easily accessible, military grade Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs. Privacy Enhancing Technologies, technological tools which provide anonymous communications and protect users from online surveillance enable new forms of online political activism. Through the short summary of the ad-hoc vigilante group Anonymous, this article describes hacktivism 1.0 as electronic civil disobedience conducted by outsiders. Through the analysis of Wikileaks, the anonymous whistleblowing website, it describes how strong PETs enable the development of hacktivism 2.0, where the source of threat is shifted from outsiders to insiders. Insiders have access to documents with which power can be exposed, and who, by using PETs, can anonymously engage in political action. We also describe the emergence of a third generation of hacktivists who use PETs to disengage and create their own autonomous spaces rather than to engage with power through anonymous whistleblowing.

Botnet detection and prevention in anonymous networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuhnert, Katharina; Steinberger, Jessica; Baier, Harald

Botnets are a major threat to the Internet landscape and have been responsible for large scale distributed attacks on online services. To make take down measures more difficult, Botnet operators started to incorporate anonymous networks into their software to protect their users and their Botnets.

Simplifying Itai-Rodeh leaderelection for anonymous rings

NARCIS (Netherlands)

W.J. Fokkink (Wan); J. Pang

2004-01-01

textabstractWe present two probabilistic leader election algorithms for anonymous unidirectional rings with FIFO channels, based on an algorithm from Itai and Rodeh. In contrast to the Itai-Rodeh algorithm, our algorithms are finite-state. So they can be analyzed using explicit state space

Between control and hacker activism: the political actions of Anonymous Brasil.

Science.gov (United States)

Machado, Murilo Bansi

2015-12-01

This paper addresses the political actions of Anonymous, the principal expression of current hacker activism, arguing that hacktivism is a form of political resistance in control societies. To this end, it focuses on studying the Brazilian, hacktivist facet of the collective. In order to stress its political character, it scrutinizes the principal expressions of hacking in the literature. It describes motivations, methods and the ethics of its political actions, based on a comparative analysis of two operations carried out by Brazilian Anonymous adherents in 2012: #OpWeeksPayment and #OpGlobo. And it finishes by identifying four of its main forms of political engagement: promotion of anonymity; "evangelization;" the formation of distributed networks; and the fact that the collective carries out and facilitates several types of political actions.

Enhancing physicians' use of Alcoholics Anonymous: Internet-based training.

Science.gov (United States)

Sellers, Brealyn; Galanter, Marc; Dermatis, Helen; Nachbar, Martin

2005-01-01

Alcoholics Anonymous is not yet fully employed by the medical community as a means to enhance patient outcome. The purpose of this study was to evaluate visitors' use of an Internet course on Alcoholics Anonymous, and to compare how various disciplines learned about, gained access to and participated in the course. Demographic information was collected from 414 visitors to the course. 64% of the 414 respondents received their last educational degree within the last 10 years, and had an interest in the topic of addiction prior to their accessing the site. 294 (71%) of those who accessed the course completed it, and those who accessed it learned about it from various sources other than print advertisement in professional journals. Within the 230 physician respondents, 143 (62%) were psychiatrists, 82 (78%) of whom learned about the Internet course via professional journal. Given the need for further training among physicians in the use of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Internet can be utilized to make information available to a large number of people. Because it allows the user to access information outside the traditional means, the barriers to its use are minimal, and it has the potential to effectively convey useful clinical information.

Interim policy on establishment and operation of internet open, anonymous information servers and services

OpenAIRE

Acting Dean of Computer and Information Services

1995-01-01

Purpose. To establish interim NPS general policy regarding establishment and operation of Open, Anonymous Information Servers and Services, such as World Wide Web (http), Gopher, Anonymous FTP, etc...

Activation of social norms in social dilemmas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Biel, Anders; Thøgersen, John

Taking rational choice theory for granted, cooperation in social dilemmas may be seen as mysterious. In one-shot dilemmas where subjects unknown to one another interact and make their decisions anonymously, cooperation could even be regarded as lunacy. Several authors have challenged this view......, though. Research has also identified various factors that imply why people cooperate or defect in social dilemmas and what motivations that might guide the decision in one way or the other. Here, a closer look will be taken at social norms as a reason for departure from rational choice, a factor...

Delineating social network data anonymization via random edge perturbation

KAUST Repository

Xue, Mingqiang; Karras, Panagiotis; Raï ssi, Chedy; Kalnis, Panos; Pung, Hungkeng

2012-01-01

study of the probability of success of any}structural attack as a function of the perturbation probability. Our analysis provides a powerful tool for delineating the identification risk of perturbed social network data; our extensive experiments

De-anonymizing Genomic Databases Using Phenotypic Traits

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Humbert Mathias

2015-06-01

Full Text Available People increasingly have their genomes sequenced and some of them share their genomic data online. They do so for various purposes, including to find relatives and to help advance genomic research. An individual’s genome carries very sensitive, private information such as its owner’s susceptibility to diseases, which could be used for discrimination. Therefore, genomic databases are often anonymized. However, an individual’s genotype is also linked to visible phenotypic traits, such as eye or hair color, which can be used to re-identify users in anonymized public genomic databases, thus raising severe privacy issues. For instance, an adversary can identify a target’s genome using known her phenotypic traits and subsequently infer her susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease. In this paper, we quantify, based on various phenotypic traits, the extent of this threat in several scenarios by implementing de-anonymization attacks on a genomic database of OpenSNP users sequenced by 23andMe. Our experimental results show that the proportion of correct matches reaches 23% with a supervised approach in a database of 50 participants. Our approach outperforms the baseline by a factor of four, in terms of the proportion of correct matches, in most scenarios. We also evaluate the adversary’s ability to predict individuals’ predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease, and we observe that the inference error can be halved compared to the baseline. We also analyze the effect of the number of known phenotypic traits on the success rate of the attack. As progress is made in genomic research, especially for genotype-phenotype associations, the threat presented in this paper will become more serious.

A Lightweight Anonymous Authentication Protocol with Perfect Forward Secrecy for Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ling Xiong

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Due to their frequent use in unattended and hostile deployment environments, the security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs has attracted much interest in the past two decades. However, it remains a challenge to design a lightweight authentication protocol for WSNs because the designers are confronted with a series of desirable security requirements, e.g., user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, resistance to de-synchronization attack. Recently, the authors presented two authentication schemes that attempt to provide user anonymity and to resist various known attacks. Unfortunately, in this work we shall show that user anonymity of the two schemes is achieved at the price of an impractical search operation—the gateway node may search for every possible value. Besides this defect, they are also prone to smart card loss attacks and have no provision for perfect forward secrecy. As our main contribution, a lightweight anonymous authentication scheme with perfect forward secrecy is designed, and what we believe the most interesting feature is that user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, and resistance to de-synchronization attack can be achieved at the same time. As far as we know, it is extremely difficult to meet these security features simultaneously only using the lightweight operations, such as symmetric encryption/decryption and hash functions.

A Lightweight Anonymous Authentication Protocol with Perfect Forward Secrecy for Wireless Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Ling; Peng, Daiyuan; Peng, Tu; Liang, Hongbin; Liu, Zhicai

2017-11-21

Due to their frequent use in unattended and hostile deployment environments, the security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has attracted much interest in the past two decades. However, it remains a challenge to design a lightweight authentication protocol for WSNs because the designers are confronted with a series of desirable security requirements, e.g., user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, resistance to de-synchronization attack. Recently, the authors presented two authentication schemes that attempt to provide user anonymity and to resist various known attacks. Unfortunately, in this work we shall show that user anonymity of the two schemes is achieved at the price of an impractical search operation-the gateway node may search for every possible value. Besides this defect, they are also prone to smart card loss attacks and have no provision for perfect forward secrecy. As our main contribution, a lightweight anonymous authentication scheme with perfect forward secrecy is designed, and what we believe the most interesting feature is that user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, and resistance to de-synchronization attack can be achieved at the same time. As far as we know, it is extremely difficult to meet these security features simultaneously only using the lightweight operations, such as symmetric encryption/decryption and hash functions.

Anonymizing patient genomic data for public sharing association studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez-Lozano, Carlos; Lopez-Campos, Guillermo; Seoane, Jose A; Lopez-Alonso, Victoria; Dorado, Julian; Martín-Sanchez, Fernando; Pazos, Alejandro

2013-01-01

The development of personalized medicine is tightly linked with the correct exploitation of molecular data, especially those associated with the genome sequence along with these use of genomic data there is an increasing demand to share these data for research purposes. Transition of clinical data to research is based in the anonymization of these data so the patient cannot be identified, the use of genomic data poses a great challenge because its nature of identifying data. In this work we have analyzed current methods for genome anonymization and propose a one way encryption method that may enable the process of genomic data sharing accessing only to certain regions of genomes for research purposes.

Body weight and perceived social pressure to exercise at a health club.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Wayne C; Miller, Todd A

2009-01-01

To determine the social pressure overweight (OW, n=1183) and normal-weight (NW, n=550) adults perceive regarding health club exercise. A 12-item survey, based on the theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behavior, measured subjective norm toward exercising at a health club 30 min, twice a week, for the next month. OW feel more social pressure to exercise at a club than do NW, but motivation to comply is the same between groups. Exercise interventions for OW should capitalize on individual perceived social pressures to exercise by designing strategies to increase motivation to comply with these pressures.

Utility-preserving transaction data anonymization with low information loss.

Science.gov (United States)

Loukides, Grigorios; Gkoulalas-Divanis, Aris

2012-08-01

Transaction data record various information about individuals, including their purchases and diagnoses, and are increasingly published to support large-scale and low-cost studies in domains such as marketing and medicine. However, the dissemination of transaction data may lead to privacy breaches, as it allows an attacker to link an individual's record to their identity. Approaches that anonymize data by eliminating certain values in an individual's record or by replacing them with more general values have been proposed recently, but they often produce data of limited usefulness. This is because these approaches adopt value transformation strategies that do not guarantee data utility in intended applications and objective measures that may lead to excessive data distortion. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for anonymizing data in a way that satisfies data publishers' utility requirements and incurs low information loss. To achieve this, we introduce an accurate information loss measure and an effective anonymization algorithm that explores a large part of the problem space. An extensive experimental study, using click-stream and medical data, demonstrates that our approach permits many times more accurate query answering than the state-of-the-art methods, while it is comparable to them in terms of efficiency.

Local and global recoding methods for anonymizing set-valued data

KAUST Repository

Terrovitis, Manolis

2010-06-10

In this paper, we study the problem of protecting privacy in the publication of set-valued data. Consider a collection of supermarket transactions that contains detailed information about items bought together by individuals. Even after removing all personal characteristics of the buyer, which can serve as links to his identity, the publication of such data is still subject to privacy attacks from adversaries who have partial knowledge about the set. Unlike most previous works, we do not distinguish data as sensitive and non-sensitive, but we consider them both as potential quasi-identifiers and potential sensitive data, depending on the knowledge of the adversary. We define a new version of the k-anonymity guarantee, the k m-anonymity, to limit the effects of the data dimensionality, and we propose efficient algorithms to transform the database. Our anonymization model relies on generalization instead of suppression, which is the most common practice in related works on such data. We develop an algorithm that finds the optimal solution, however, at a high cost that makes it inapplicable for large, realistic problems. Then, we propose a greedy heuristic, which performs generalizations in an Apriori, level-wise fashion. The heuristic scales much better and in most of the cases finds a solution close to the optimal. Finally, we investigate the application of techniques that partition the database and perform anonymization locally, aiming at the reduction of the memory consumption and further scalability. A thorough experimental evaluation with real datasets shows that a vertical partitioning approach achieves excellent results in practice. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

To Speak or Not to Speak: Developing Legal Standards for Anonymous Speech on the Internet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomas A. Lipinski

2002-01-01

Full Text Available This paper explores recent developments in the regulation of Internet speech, in specific, injurious or defamatory speech and the impact such speech has on the rights of anonymous speakers to remain anonymous as opposed to having their identity revealed to plaintiffs or other third parties. The paper proceeds in four sections.  First, a brief history of the legal attempts to regulate defamatory Internet speech in the United States is presented. As discussed below this regulation has altered the traditional legal paradigm of responsibility and as a result creates potential problems for the future of anonymous speech on the Internet.  As a result plaintiffs are no longer pursuing litigation against service providers but taking their dispute directly to the anonymous speaker. Second, several cases have arisen in the United States where plaintiffs have requested that the identity of an anonymous Internet speaker be revealed.  These cases are surveyed.  Third, the cases are analyzed in order to determine the factors that courts require to be present before the identity of an anonymous speaker will be revealed.  The release is typically accomplished by the enforcement of a discovery subpoena instigated by the party seeking the identity of the anonymous speaker. The factors courts have used are as follows: jurisdiction, good faith (both internal and external, necessity (basic and sometimes absolute, and at times proprietary interest. Finally, these factors are applied in three scenarios--e-commerce, education, and employment--to guide institutions when adopting policies that regulate when the identity of an anonymous speaker--a customer, a student or an employee--would be released as part of an internal initiative, but would nonetheless be consistent with developing legal standards.

Anonymous Communication Policies for the Internet: Results and Recommendations of the AAAS Conference.

Science.gov (United States)

Teich, Al; Frankel, Mark S.; Kling, Rob; Lee, Yaching

1999-01-01

Reports the results of a conference on the Internet and anonymous communication organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Discusses how anonymous communications can be shaped by the law, education, and public awareness, and highlights the importance of involving all affected interests in policy development.…

Activation of social norms in social dilemmas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Biel, Anders; Thøgersen, John

2007-01-01

Taking rational choice theory for granted, cooperation in social dilemmas may be seen as mysterious. In one-shot dilemmas where subjects unknown to one another interact and make their decisions anonymously, cooperation could even be regarded as lunacy. Several authors have challenged this view......, though. Research has also identiWed various factors that imply why people cooperate or defect in social dilemmas and what motivations that might guide the decision in one way or the other. Here, a closer look will be taken at social norms as a reason for departure from rational choice, a factor...

Model of community emergence in weighted social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Kumpula, J. M.; Onnela, J.-P.; Saramäki, J.; Kertész, J.; Kaski, K.

2009-04-01

Over the years network theory has proven to be rapidly expanding methodology to investigate various complex systems and it has turned out to give quite unparalleled insight to their structure, function, and response through data analysis, modeling, and simulation. For social systems in particular the network approach has empirically revealed a modular structure due to interplay between the network topology and link weights between network nodes or individuals. This inspired us to develop a simple network model that could catch some salient features of mesoscopic community and macroscopic topology formation during network evolution. Our model is based on two fundamental mechanisms of network sociology for individuals to find new friends, namely cyclic closure and focal closure, which are mimicked by local search-link-reinforcement and random global attachment mechanisms, respectively. In addition we included to the model a node deletion mechanism by removing all its links simultaneously, which corresponds for an individual to depart from the network. Here we describe in detail the implementation of our model algorithm, which was found to be computationally efficient and produce many empirically observed features of large-scale social networks. Thus this model opens a new perspective for studying such collective social phenomena as spreading, structure formation, and evolutionary processes.

(a,k)-Anonymous Scheme for Privacy-Preserving Data Collection in IoT-based Healthcare Services Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Hongtao; Guo, Feng; Zhang, Wenyin; Wang, Jie; Xing, Jinsheng

2018-02-14

The widely use of IoT technologies in healthcare services has pushed forward medical intelligence level of services. However, it also brings potential privacy threat to the data collection. In healthcare services system, health and medical data that contains privacy information are often transmitted among networks, and such privacy information should be protected. Therefore, there is a need for privacy-preserving data collection (PPDC) scheme to protect clients (patients) data. We adopt (a,k)-anonymity model as privacy pretection scheme for data collection, and propose a novel anonymity-based PPDC method for healthcare services in this paper. The threat model is analyzed in the client-server-to-user (CS2U) model. On client-side, we utilize (a,k)-anonymity notion to generate anonymous tuples which can resist possible attack, and adopt a bottom-up clustering method to create clusters that satisfy a base privacy level of (a 1 ,k 1 )-anonymity. On server-side, we reduce the communication cost through generalization technology, and compress (a 1 ,k 1 )-anonymous data through an UPGMA-based cluster combination method to make the data meet the deeper level of privacy (a 2 ,k 2 )-anonymity (a 1  ≥ a 2 , k 2  ≥ k 1 ). Theoretical analysis and experimental results prove that our scheme is effective in privacy-preserving and data quality.

Assessing the Feasibility of a Social Media to Promote Weight Management Engagement in Adolescents with Severe Obesity: Pilot Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Prout Parks, Elizabeth; Moore, Reneé H; Li, Ziyi; Bishop-Gilyard, Chanelle T; Garrett, Andrew R; Hill, Douglas L; Bruton, Yasmeen P; Sarwer, David B

2018-03-19

Severe obesity in adolescents has deleterious physical and psychological complications necessitating frequent multi-disciplinary clinic visits. Greater treatment engagement has been equated with weight-loss. However, traditional medical weight-loss programs for adolescents have high attrition rates. Social media is widely used by adolescents and may enhance medical weight management engagement and success. The first objective was to examine the acceptability and feasibility of using a private social media group as an adjunct to medical weight management in youth ages 14 to 20 years with severe obesity [body mass index (BMI) ≥ 35 kg/m2]. The second objective was to pilot test the use of social media to improve treatment engagement and decrease attrition rates. In this single arm, 12 week pre-post study, participants attended individual clinic visits and participated in a moderated private social media group that received nutrition, exercise, and behavior change social media communications or "posts" 3 to 4 times/week. Youth commented and/or liked posts from the moderator and each other. Social media engagement was measured with the number of likes and comments on social media. Clinic attrition was compared, measuring clinic visit attendance 12 weeks prior, during, and after the intervention with mixed linear regression models. Correlations of social media engagement with changes from baseline for BMI, BMI-z score, and psychosocial measures were fit. All 13 enrolled youth completed the study and reported that the group was enjoyable, helpful, reinforced their weight management program, and would recommend using social media to support other youth. The pilot trial was acceptable and feasible. Youth mean weekly engagement (likes + comments) in social media was greater than once a day (8.6 ±3.6). Compared to 12 weeks prior to the intervention, there was no significant decrease in clinic visit attendance at the end of the intervention (M=.231, P=.69) or 12 weeks at

Security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards and biometrics.

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Younsung; Nam, Junghyun; Lee, Donghoon; Kim, Jiye; Jung, Jaewook; Won, Dongho

2014-01-01

An anonymous user authentication scheme allows a user, who wants to access a remote application server, to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the server in an anonymous manner. To enhance the security of such authentication schemes, recent researches combined user's biometrics with a password. However, these authentication schemes are designed for single server environment. So when a user wants to access different application servers, the user has to register many times. To solve this problem, Chuang and Chen proposed an anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards together with passwords and biometrics. Chuang and Chen claimed that their scheme not only supports multiple servers but also achieves various security requirements. However, we show that this scheme is vulnerable to a masquerade attack, a smart card attack, a user impersonation attack, and a DoS attack and does not achieve perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme which addresses all the weaknesses identified in Chuang and Chen's scheme.

Security Enhanced Anonymous Multiserver Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme Using Smart Cards and Biometrics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Younsung Choi

2014-01-01

Full Text Available An anonymous user authentication scheme allows a user, who wants to access a remote application server, to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the server in an anonymous manner. To enhance the security of such authentication schemes, recent researches combined user’s biometrics with a password. However, these authentication schemes are designed for single server environment. So when a user wants to access different application servers, the user has to register many times. To solve this problem, Chuang and Chen proposed an anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards together with passwords and biometrics. Chuang and Chen claimed that their scheme not only supports multiple servers but also achieves various security requirements. However, we show that this scheme is vulnerable to a masquerade attack, a smart card attack, a user impersonation attack, and a DoS attack and does not achieve perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme which addresses all the weaknesses identified in Chuang and Chen’s scheme.

Rejection of unfair offers can be driven by negative emotions, evidence from modified ultimatum games with anonymity.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Ning; Li, Nan; He, Xiao-Song; Sun, De-Lin; Zhang, Xiaochu; Zhang, Da-Ren

2012-01-01

The rejection of unfair offers can be affected by both negative emotions (e.g. anger and moral disgust) and deliberate cognitive processing of behavioral consequences (e.g. concerns of maintaining social fairness and protecting personal reputation). However, whether negative emotions are sufficient to motivate this behavior is still controversial. With modified ultimatum games, a recent study (Yamagishi T, et al. (2009) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:11520-11523) found that people reject unfair offers even when this behavior increases inequity, and even when they could not communicate to the proposers. Yamagishi suggested that rejection of unfair offers could occur without people's concerning of maintaining social fairness, and could be driven by negative emotions. However, as anonymity was not sufficiently guaranteed in Yamagishi's study, the rejection rates in their experiments may have been influenced by people's concerns of protecting personal reputation (reputational concerns) in addition to negative emotions; thus, it was unclear whether the rejection was driven by negative emotions, or by reputational concerns, or both. In the present study, with specific methods to ensure anonymity, the effect of reputational concerns was successfully ruled out. We found that in a private situation in which rejection could not be driven by reputational concerns, the rejection rates of unfair offers were significantly larger than zero, and in public situations in which rejection rates could be influenced by both negative emotions and reputational concerns, rejection rates were significantly higher than that in the private situation. These results, together with Yamagishi's findings, provided more complete evidence suggesting (a) that the rejection of unfair offers can be driven by negative emotions and (b) that deliberate cognitive processing of the consequences of the behavior can increase the rejection rate, which may benefit social cooperation.

Green Suppliers Performance Evaluation in Belt and Road Using Fuzzy Weighted Average with Social Media Information

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kuo-Ping Lin

2017-12-01

Full Text Available A decision model for selecting a suitable supplier is a key to reducing the environmental impact in green supply chain management for high-tech companies. Traditional fuzzy weight average (FWA adopts linguistic variable to determine weight by experts. However, the weights of FWA have not considered the public voice, meaning the viewpoints of consumers in green supply chain management. This paper focuses on developing a novel decision model for green supplier selection in the One Belt and One Road (OBOR initiative through a fuzzy weighted average approach with social media. The proposed decision model uses the membership grade of the criteria and sub-criteria and its relative weights, which consider the volume of social media, to establish an analysis matrix of green supplier selection. Then, the proposed fuzzy weighted average approach is considered as an aggregating tool to calculate a synthetic score for each green supplier in the Belt and Road initiative. The final score of the green supplier is ordered by a non-fuzzy performance value ranking method to help the consumer make a decision. A case of green supplier selection in the light-emitting diode (LED industry is used to demonstrate the proposed decision model. The findings demonstrate (1 the consumer’s main concerns are the “Quality” and “Green products” in LED industry, hence, the ranking of suitable supplier in FWA with social media information model obtained the difference result with tradition FWA; (2 OBOR in the LED industry is not fervently discussed in searches of Google and Twitter; and (3 the FWA with social media information could objectively analyze the green supplier selection because the novel model considers the viewpoints of the consumer.

Efficient and Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Libing; Zhang, Yubo; Li, Li; Shen, Jian

2016-06-01

As a significant part of the Internet of Things (IoT), Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) has attract much attention in this years. In WBANs, sensors placed in or around the human body collect the sensitive data of the body and transmit it through an open wireless channel in which the messages may be intercepted, modified, etc. Recently, Wang et al. presented a new anonymous authentication scheme for WBANs and claimed that their scheme can solve the security problems in the previous schemes. Unfortunately, we demonstrate that their scheme cannot withstand impersonation attack. Either an adversary or a malicious legal client could impersonate another legal client to the application provider. In this paper, we give the detailed weakness analysis of Wang et al.'s scheme at first. Then we present a novel anonymous authentication scheme for WBANs and prove that it's secure under a random oracle model. At last, we demonstrate that our presented anonymous authentication scheme for WBANs is more suitable for practical application than Wang et al.'s scheme due to better security and performance. Compared with Wang et al.'s scheme, the computation cost of our scheme in WBANs has reduced by about 31.58%.

Information Processing Versus Social Cognitive Mediators of Weight Loss in a Podcast-Delivered Health Intervention

Science.gov (United States)

Ko, Linda K.; Turner-McGrievy, Gabrielle M.; Campbell, Marci K.

2014-01-01

Podcasting is an emerging technology, and previous interventions have shown promising results using theory-based podcast for weight loss among overweight and obese individuals. This study investigated whether constructs of social cognitive theory and information processing theories (IPTs) mediate the effect of a podcast intervention on weight loss…

Source Anonymity in WSNs against Global Adversary Utilizing Low Transmission Rates with Delay Constraints

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anas Bushnag

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Wireless sensor networks (WSN are deployed for many applications such as tracking and monitoring of endangered species, military applications, etc. which require anonymity of the origin, known as Source Location Privacy (SLP. The aim in SLP is to prevent unauthorized observers from tracing the source of a real event by analyzing the traffic in the network. Previous approaches to SLP such as Fortified Anonymous Communication Protocol (FACP employ transmission of real or fake packets in every time slot, which is inefficient. To overcome this shortcoming, we developed three different techniques presented in this paper. Dummy Uniform Distribution (DUD, Dummy Adaptive Distribution (DAD and Controlled Dummy Adaptive Distribution (CAD were developed to overcome the anonymity problem against a global adversary (which has the capability of analyzing and monitoring the entire network. Most of the current techniques try to prevent the adversary from perceiving the location and time of the real event whereas our proposed techniques confuse the adversary about the existence of the real event by introducing low rate fake messages, which subsequently lead to location and time privacy. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed techniques provide reasonable delivery ratio, delay, and overhead of a real event's packets while keeping a high level of anonymity. Three different analysis models are conducted to verify the performance of our techniques. A visualization of the simulation data is performed to confirm anonymity. Further, neural network models are developed to ensure that the introduced techniques preserve SLP. Finally, a steganography model based on probability is implemented to prove the anonymity of the techniques.

Use of WhatsApp in Higher Education: What's Up with Assessing Peers Anonymously?

Science.gov (United States)

Güler, Çetin

2017-01-01

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of WhatsApp application in anonymous peer assessment in higher education. The mobile phone application WhatsApp was used as both an anonymous and nonanonymous peer assessment tool in a classroom environment. The participants of the study were the students of two classes (sophomores and juniors), half…

Moves on the Street: Classifying Crime Hotspots Using Aggregated Anonymized Data on People Dynamics.

Science.gov (United States)

Bogomolov, Andrey; Lepri, Bruno; Staiano, Jacopo; Letouzé, Emmanuel; Oliver, Nuria; Pianesi, Fabio; Pentland, Alex

2015-09-01

The wealth of information provided by real-time streams of data has paved the way for life-changing technological advancements, improving the quality of life of people in many ways, from facilitating knowledge exchange to self-understanding and self-monitoring. Moreover, the analysis of anonymized and aggregated large-scale human behavioral data offers new possibilities to understand global patterns of human behavior and helps decision makers tackle problems of societal importance. In this article, we highlight the potential societal benefits derived from big data applications with a focus on citizen safety and crime prevention. First, we introduce the emergent new research area of big data for social good. Next, we detail a case study tackling the problem of crime hotspot classification, that is, the classification of which areas in a city are more likely to witness crimes based on past data. In the proposed approach we use demographic information along with human mobility characteristics as derived from anonymized and aggregated mobile network data. The hypothesis that aggregated human behavioral data captured from the mobile network infrastructure, in combination with basic demographic information, can be used to predict crime is supported by our findings. Our models, built on and evaluated against real crime data from London, obtain accuracy of almost 70% when classifying whether a specific area in the city will be a crime hotspot or not in the following month.

An Enhancing Security Research of Tor Anonymous Communication to Against DDos Attacks

OpenAIRE

Feng Tao; Zhao Ming-Tao

2017-01-01

Tor (The Second Onion Router) is modified by the first generation onion router and known as the most prevalent anonymous communication system. According to the advantage of low latency, high confidentiality of transmission content, high security of communication channels and et al., Tor is widely used in anonymous Web browsing, instant message and so on. However, the vulnerability and blemish of Tor affect system security. An identity and Signcryption-based concurrent signature scheme was use...

Anonymous electronic trading versus floor trading

OpenAIRE

Franke, Günter; Hess, Dieter

1995-01-01

This paper compares the attractiveness of floor trading and anonymous electronic trading systems. It is argued that in times of low information intensity the insight into the order book of the electronic trading system provides more valuable information than floor trading, but in times of high information intensity the reverse is true. Thus, the electronic system's market share in trading activity should decline in times of high information intensity. This hypothesis is tested by data on BUND...

Simplifying Itai-Rodeh Leader Election for Anonymous Rings

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fokkink, W.J.; Pang, J.

2005-01-01

We present two probabilistic leader election algorithms for anonymous unidirectional rings with FIFO channels, based on an algorithm from Itai and Rodeh [A. Itai and M. Rodeh. Symmetry breaking in distributive networks. In Proc. FOCS'81, pp. 150-158. IEEE Computer Society, 1981]. In contrast to the

An Anonymous Access Authentication Scheme Based on Proxy Ring Signature for CPS-WMNs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tianhan Gao

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Access security and privacy have become a bottleneck for the popularization of future Cyber-Physical System (CPS networks. Furthermore, users’ need for privacy-preserved access during movement procedure is more urgent. To address the anonymous access authentication issue for CPS Wireless Mesh Network (CPS-WMN, a novel anonymous access authentication scheme based on proxy ring signature is proposed. A hierarchical authentication architecture is presented first. The scheme is then achieved from the aspect of intergroup and intragroup anonymous mutual authentication through proxy ring signature mechanism and certificateless signature mechanism, respectively. We present a formal security proof of the proposed protocol with SVO logic. The simulation and performance analysis demonstrate that the proposed scheme owns higher efficiency and adaptability than the typical one.

Gendered Conversation in a Social Game-Streaming Platform

OpenAIRE

Nakandala, Supun; Ciampaglia, Giovanni Luca; Su, Norman Makoto; Ahn, Yong-Yeol

2016-01-01

Online social media and games are increasingly replacing offline social activities. Social media is now an indispensable mode of communication; online gaming is not only a genuine social activity but also a popular spectator sport. With support for anonymity and larger audiences, online interaction shrinks social and geographical barriers. Despite such benefits, social disparities such as gender inequality persist in online social media. In particular, online gaming communities have been crit...

Inverse probability weighting in STI/HIV prevention research: methods for evaluating social and community interventions

Science.gov (United States)

Lippman, Sheri A.; Shade, Starley B.; Hubbard, Alan E.

2011-01-01

Background Intervention effects estimated from non-randomized intervention studies are plagued by biases, yet social or structural intervention studies are rarely randomized. There are underutilized statistical methods available to mitigate biases due to self-selection, missing data, and confounding in longitudinal, observational data permitting estimation of causal effects. We demonstrate the use of Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW) to evaluate the effect of participating in a combined clinical and social STI/HIV prevention intervention on reduction of incident chlamydia and gonorrhea infections among sex workers in Brazil. Methods We demonstrate the step-by-step use of IPW, including presentation of the theoretical background, data set up, model selection for weighting, application of weights, estimation of effects using varied modeling procedures, and discussion of assumptions for use of IPW. Results 420 sex workers contributed data on 840 incident chlamydia and gonorrhea infections. Participators were compared to non-participators following application of inverse probability weights to correct for differences in covariate patterns between exposed and unexposed participants and between those who remained in the intervention and those who were lost-to-follow-up. Estimators using four model selection procedures provided estimates of intervention effect between odds ratio (OR) .43 (95% CI:.22-.85) and .53 (95% CI:.26-1.1). Conclusions After correcting for selection bias, loss-to-follow-up, and confounding, our analysis suggests a protective effect of participating in the Encontros intervention. Evaluations of behavioral, social, and multi-level interventions to prevent STI can benefit by introduction of weighting methods such as IPW. PMID:20375927

Anonymous pastoral care for problems pertaining to sexuality

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Drie, A.; Ganzevoort, R.R.; Spiering, M.

2014-01-01

Anonymous pastoral care is one of the options for help in problems pertaining to sexuality. This paper explores the topics they seek help for, the religious aspects involved, and the relation between the normativity of their church tradition on the one hand and sexual and spiritual health criteria

Effects of maternal pregnancy intention, depressive symptoms and social support on risk of low birth weight: a prospective study from southwestern Ethiopia.

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Yohannes Dibaba Wado

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Low birth weight (LBW is the principal risk factor for neonatal and infant mortality in developing countries. This study examines the effects of unwanted pregnancy, prenatal depression and social support on the risk of low birth weight in rural southwestern Ethiopia. We hypothesized that unwanted pregnancy and prenatal depression increase the risk of low birth weight, while social support mediates this association. METHODS: Data for the study comes from a prospective study in which women were followed from pregnancy through to delivery. Six hundred twenty two women were followed and 537 birth weights were measured within 72 hours. Multivariable log binomial regression was used to model the risk of low birth weight. RESULTS: The mean birth weight was 2989 grams (SD ± 504 grams, and the incidence of LBW was 17.88%. The mean birth weight of babies after unwanted pregnancy was 114 g lower compared to births from intended pregnancy. Similarly, mean birth weight for babies among women with symptoms of antenatal depression was 116 grams lower. Results of unadjusted log-binomial regression showed that unwanted pregnancy, prenatal depression and social support were associated with LBW. The relationship between antenatal depressive symptoms and LBW was mediated by the presence of social support, while the association between LBW and unwanted pregnancy remained after multivariable adjustment. CONCLUSION: The incidence of low birth weight is high in the study area. Poverty, nonuse of antenatal care, low social support and unwanted pregnancy contribute to this high incidence of low birth weight. Hence, identifying women's pregnancy intention during antenatal care visits, and providing appropriate counseling and social support will help improve birth outcomes.

Confidentiality, anonymity and amnesty for midwives in distress seeking online support - Ethical?

Science.gov (United States)

Pezaro, Sally; Clyne, Wendy; Gerada, Clare

2018-06-01

Midwife health is intrinsically linked to the quality of safe patient care. To ensure safe patient care, there is a need to deliver emotional support to midwives. One option that midwives may turn to may be a confidential online intervention, instead of localised, face-to-face support. Following the Realist And MEta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards publication standards, this realist synthesis approach explores the ethical considerations in permitting confidentiality, anonymity and amnesty in online interventions to support midwives in work-related psychological distress. An iterative search methodology was used to select nine papers for review. To assimilate information, papers were examined for ideas relating to ethical dimensions of online interventions to support midwives in work-related psychological distress. This review takes a narrative approach. Online interventions can support the development of insight, help seeking and open discussion. Additionally, Internet support groups can become morally persuasive in nature. Anonymity and confidentiality are both effective and therapeutic features of online interventions when used in collaboration with effective online moderation. Yet, ethical dilemmas remain where users cannot be identified. Confidentiality and anonymity remain key components of successful online interventions. However, sanctioning the corollary component of amnesty may provoke moral discomfort for those seeking immediate accountability. For others, amnesty is seen as essential for open disclosure and help seeking. Ultimately, the needs of midwives must be balanced with the requirement to protect the public and the professional reputation of midwifery. In supporting midwives online, the principles of anonymity, confidentiality and amnesty may evoke some resistance on ethical grounds. However, without offering identity protection, it may not be possible to create effective online support services for midwives. The authors of this

Inseminação artificial e anonimato do doador Artificial insemination and donor anonymity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria do Carmo Demasi Wanssa

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Através desse trabalho, objetiva-se abordar o tema de doação de gametas e do anonimato envolvendo este ato na reprodução medicamente assistida. Analisando rapidamente o caráter técnico da doação e seleção dos gametas e a necessidade de uma legislação específica sobre o assunto nos diferentes países do mundo que adotaram esse método, diante da pluralidade social existente. Consideram-se os aspectos éticos e legais vigentes no Brasil ditados pela Resolução do Conselho Federal de Medicina n° 1.358/93 que determina as condutas dos médicos brasileiros e define, dentre outros aspectos, o da doação e do anonimato, envolvendo o aspecto autonomia. A necessidade de proteção dos sujeitos através do termo de consentimento informado ou de recusa informada, permitindo garantir a informação e esclarecimento necessário ao casal que decide submeter-se aos planos de reprodução medicamente assistida assim como ao doador que, por sua vez, também deve dar garantias escritas quanto à espontaneidade e à alienação dos direitos sobre os gametas à instituição que se torna a responsável por estes. Tudo isso, aliado à veracidade e confidencialidade, compõe os elementos fundamentais para a manutenção do anonimato entre o doador e o receptor. Anonimato este, ainda muito discutido pelos estudiosos de diversas áreas e países.This article aims to address the issue of the donation of gametes and the anonymity involved in this act of medically-assisted reproduction. It briefly discusses the technical aspects of the donation and selection of gametes and the need for specific legislation on the issue in various countries that have adopted this method, in view of the plurality of different social systems in the world today. The article addresses the legal and ethical issues that are currently being aired in Brazil, and the rulings contained in the Federal Medical Council Resolution 1,358/93, which rules on the conduct of physicians in

Formal Security-Proved Mobile Anonymous Authentication Protocols with Credit-Based Chargeability and Controllable Privacy

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Chun-I Fan

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Smart mobile phones are widely popularized and advanced mobile communication services are provided increasingly often, such that ubiquitous computing environments will soon be a reality. However, there are many security threats to mobile networks and their impact on security is more serious than that in wireline networks owing to the features of wireless transmissions and the ubiquity property. The secret information which mobile users carry may be stolen by malicious entities. To guarantee the quality of advanced services, security and privacy would be important issues when users roam within various mobile networks. In this manuscript, an anonymous authentication scheme will be proposed to protect the security of the network system and the privacy of users. Not only does the proposed scheme provide mutual authentication between each user and the system, but also each user’s identity is kept secret against anyone else, including the system. Although the system anonymously authenticates the users, it can still generate correct bills to charge these anonymous users via a credit-based solution instead of debit-based ones. Furthermore, our protocols also achieve fair privacy which allows the judge to revoke the anonymity and trace the illegal users when they have misused the anonymity property, for example, if they have committed crimes. Finally, in this paper, we also carry out complete theoretical proofs on each claimed security property.

Subjective Social Status, Mental and Psychosocial Health, and Birth Weight Differences in Mexican-American and Mexican Immigrant Women.

Science.gov (United States)

Fleuriet, K Jill; Sunil, T S

2015-12-01

Recent Mexican immigrant women on average have an unexpectedly low incidence of low birth weight (LBW). Birth weights decline and LBW incidence increases in post-immigrant generations. This pilot project tested the hypothesis that subjective social status (SSS) of pregnant women predicts variation in birth weight between Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American women. 300 low-income pregnant Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American women in South Texas were surveyed for SSS, depression, pregnancy-related anxiety, perceived social stress and self-esteem and subsequent birth weight. No significant difference in SSS levels between pregnant Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American women were found. However, SSS better predicted variation in birth weight across both groups than mental and psychosocial health variables. Results suggest distinct relationships among SSS, mental and psychosocial health that could impact birth weight. They underscore the relevance of a multilevel, biopsychosocial analytical framework to studying LBW.

An Anonymous Surveying Protocol via Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger States

Science.gov (United States)

Naseri, Mosayeb; Gong, Li-Hua; Houshmand, Monireh; Matin, Laleh Farhang

2016-10-01

A new experimentally feasible anonymous survey protocol with authentication using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entangled states is proposed. In this protocol, a chief executive officer (CEO) of a firm or company is trying to find out the effect of a possible action. In order to prepare a fair voting, the CEO would like to make an anonymous survey and is also interested in the total action for the whole company and he doesn't want to have a partial estimate for each department. In our proposal, there are two voters, Alice and Bob, voting on a question with a response of either "yes" or "no" and a tallyman, whose responsibility is to determine whether they have cast the same vote or not. In the proposed protocol the total response of the voters is calculated without revealing the actual votes of the voters.

Socialization and Selection Effects in the Association between Weight Conscious Peer Groups and Thin-Ideal Internalization: A Co-Twin Control Study

Science.gov (United States)

Burt, S. Alexandra; O’Connor, Shannon; Thompson, J. Kevin; Klump, Kelly L.

2016-01-01

Affiliation with weight conscious peer groups is theorized to increase thin-ideal internalization through socialization processes. However, selection effects could contribute if genetic and/or environmental predispositions lead to affiliation with weight conscious peers. Co-twin control methodology was used to examine socialization and selection effects in 614 female twins (ages 8–15) from the Michigan State University Twin Registry (MSUTR). Thin-ideal internalization and peer group characteristics were assessed via self-report questionnaires. Results suggested the presence of both socialization and selection effects. In terms of socialization, twins who reported increased exposure to weight conscious peers relative to their co-twins had elevated thin-ideal internalization scores, regardless of zygosity. However, associations between weight conscious peers and thin-ideal internationalization within twin pairs were attenuated, suggesting that genetic and shared environmental selection effects also contribute. Findings significantly extend previous work by confirming the presence of socialization processes and highlighting selection processes to be examined in future longitudinal research. PMID:26859605

An Anonymous Credit Card System

Science.gov (United States)

Androulaki, Elli; Bellovin, Steven

Credit cards have many important benefits; however, these same benefits often carry with them many privacy concerns. In particular, the need for users to be able to monitor their own transactions, as well as bank’s need to justify its payment requests from cardholders, entitle the latter to maintain a detailed log of all transactions its credit card customers were involved in. A bank can thus build a profile of each cardholder even without the latter’s consent. In this paper, we present a practical and accountable anonymous credit system based on ecash, with a privacy preserving mechanism for error correction and expense-reporting.

Recipient screening in IVF: First data from women undergoing anonymous oocyte donation in Dublin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salma Umme

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Guidelines for safe gamete donation have emphasised donor screening, although none exist specifically for testing oocyte recipients. Pre-treatment assessment of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment in Ireland must comply with the European Union Tissues and Cells Directive (Directive 2004/23/EC. To determine the effectiveness of this Directive when applied to anonymous oocyte recipients in IVF, we reviewed data derived from selected screening tests performed in this clinical setting. Methods Data from tests conducted at baseline for all women enrolling as recipients (n = 225 in the anonymous oocyte donor IVF programme at an urban IVF referral centre during a 24-month period were analysed. Patient age at programme entry and clinical pregnancy rate were also tabulated. All recipients had at least one prior negative test for HIV, Hepatitis B/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis performed by her GP or other primary care provider before reproductive endocrinology consultation. Results Mean (±SD age for donor egg IVF recipients was 40.7 ± 4.2 yrs. No baseline positive chlamydia, gonorrhoea or syphilis screening results were identified among recipients for anonymous oocyte donation IVF during the assessment interval. Mean pregnancy rate (per embryo transfer in this group was 50.5%. Conclusion When tests for HIV, Hepatitis B/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis already have been confirmed to be negative before starting the anonymous donor oocyte IVF sequence, additional (repeat testing on the recipient contributes no new clinical information that would influence treatment in this setting. Patient safety does not appear to be enhanced by application of Directive 2004/23/EC to recipients of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment. Given the absence of evidence to quantify risk, this practice is difficult to justify when applied to this low-risk population.

Recipient screening in IVF: First data from women undergoing anonymous oocyte donation in Dublin

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Walsh, Anthony PH

2011-04-20

Abstract Background Guidelines for safe gamete donation have emphasised donor screening, although none exist specifically for testing oocyte recipients. Pre-treatment assessment of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment in Ireland must comply with the European Union Tissues and Cells Directive (Directive 2004\\/23\\/EC). To determine the effectiveness of this Directive when applied to anonymous oocyte recipients in IVF, we reviewed data derived from selected screening tests performed in this clinical setting. Methods Data from tests conducted at baseline for all women enrolling as recipients (n = 225) in the anonymous oocyte donor IVF programme at an urban IVF referral centre during a 24-month period were analysed. Patient age at programme entry and clinical pregnancy rate were also tabulated. All recipients had at least one prior negative test for HIV, Hepatitis B\\/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis performed by her GP or other primary care provider before reproductive endocrinology consultation. Results Mean (±SD) age for donor egg IVF recipients was 40.7 ± 4.2 yrs. No baseline positive chlamydia, gonorrhoea or syphilis screening results were identified among recipients for anonymous oocyte donation IVF during the assessment interval. Mean pregnancy rate (per embryo transfer) in this group was 50.5%. Conclusion When tests for HIV, Hepatitis B\\/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis already have been confirmed to be negative before starting the anonymous donor oocyte IVF sequence, additional (repeat) testing on the recipient contributes no new clinical information that would influence treatment in this setting. Patient safety does not appear to be enhanced by application of Directive 2004\\/23\\/EC to recipients of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment. Given the absence of evidence to quantify risk, this practice is difficult to justify when applied to this low-risk population.

Social Media and HIV: A Systematic Review of Uses of Social Media in HIV Communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Taggart, Tamara; Grewe, Mary Elisabeth; Conserve, Donaldson F; Gliwa, Catherine; Roman Isler, Malika

2015-11-02

Social media, including mobile technologies and social networking sites, are being used increasingly as part of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and treatment efforts. As an important avenue for communication about HIV, social media use may continue to increase and become more widespread. The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive systematic review of the current published literature on the design, users, benefits, and limitations of using social media to communicate about HIV prevention and treatment. This review paper used a systematic approach to survey all literature published before February 2014 using 7 electronic databases and a manual search. The inclusion criteria were (1) primary focus on communication/interaction about HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), (2) discusses the use of social media to facilitate communication, (3) communication on the social media platform is between individuals or a group of individuals rather than the use of preset, automated responses from a platform, (4) published before February 19, 2014, and (5) all study designs. The search identified 35 original research studies. Thirty studies had low or unclear risk of at least one of the bias items in the methodological quality assessment. Among the 8 social media platform types described, short message service text messaging was most commonly used. Platforms served multiple purposes including disseminating health information, conducting health promotion, sharing experiences, providing social support, and promoting medication adherence. Social media users were diverse in geographic location and race/ethnicity; studies commonly reported users aged 18-40 years and users with lower income. Although most studies did not specify whether use was anonymous, studies reported the importance of anonymity in social media use to communicate about HIV largely due to the stigma associated with HIV. The ability to share and receive information about HIV was

Social Media and HIV: A Systematic Review of Uses of Social Media in HIV Communication

Science.gov (United States)

Grewe, Mary Elisabeth; Conserve, Donaldson F; Gliwa, Catherine; Roman Isler, Malika

2015-01-01

Background Social media, including mobile technologies and social networking sites, are being used increasingly as part of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and treatment efforts. As an important avenue for communication about HIV, social media use may continue to increase and become more widespread. Objective The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive systematic review of the current published literature on the design, users, benefits, and limitations of using social media to communicate about HIV prevention and treatment. Methods This review paper used a systematic approach to survey all literature published before February 2014 using 7 electronic databases and a manual search. The inclusion criteria were (1) primary focus on communication/interaction about HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), (2) discusses the use of social media to facilitate communication, (3) communication on the social media platform is between individuals or a group of individuals rather than the use of preset, automated responses from a platform, (4) published before February 19, 2014, and (5) all study designs. Results The search identified 35 original research studies. Thirty studies had low or unclear risk of at least one of the bias items in the methodological quality assessment. Among the 8 social media platform types described, short message service text messaging was most commonly used. Platforms served multiple purposes including disseminating health information, conducting health promotion, sharing experiences, providing social support, and promoting medication adherence. Social media users were diverse in geographic location and race/ethnicity; studies commonly reported users aged 18-40 years and users with lower income. Although most studies did not specify whether use was anonymous, studies reported the importance of anonymity in social media use to communicate about HIV largely due to the stigma associated with HIV. The ability to share and

The Role of the Anonymous Voice in Post-Publication Peer Review Versus Traditional Peer Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Traditional peer review (TPR has several limitations and weaknesses. Post-publication peer review is one practical way to repair the ills of TPR and reinforce it. A literature that is marked by errors is unhealthy and should, if given the opportunity, be corrected or further improved. The anonymous voice is one source of critique and differs from the blind peer review in TPR in which the reviewer remains anonymous to the authors and/or vice versa, but the identity is known to the editor. If unregulated, the anonymous voice can pose a threat to established editorial norms in TPR, to one of the most important criteria of science publishing, i.e., transparency, and to worthwhile discussion. Yet, if the anonymous voice is not heard, then a vast and potentially valuable pool of untapped opinions may be lost, opinions that may provide valuable solutions to improving TPR.

Cardinality Estimation Algorithm in Large-Scale Anonymous Wireless Sensor Networks

KAUST Repository

Douik, Ahmed

2017-08-30

Consider a large-scale anonymous wireless sensor network with unknown cardinality. In such graphs, each node has no information about the network topology and only possesses a unique identifier. This paper introduces a novel distributed algorithm for cardinality estimation and topology discovery, i.e., estimating the number of node and structure of the graph, by querying a small number of nodes and performing statistical inference methods. While the cardinality estimation allows the design of more efficient coding schemes for the network, the topology discovery provides a reliable way for routing packets. The proposed algorithm is shown to produce a cardinality estimate proportional to the best linear unbiased estimator for dense graphs and specific running times. Simulation results attest the theoretical results and reveal that, for a reasonable running time, querying a small group of nodes is sufficient to perform an estimation of 95% of the whole network. Applications of this work include estimating the number of Internet of Things (IoT) sensor devices, online social users, active protein cells, etc.

Weight self-regulation process in adolescence: the relationship between control weight attitudes, behaviors and body weight status

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jordi ePich

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Adolescents’ self-control weight behaviors were assessed (n= 1961; 12-17 years old; 2007-2008 in the Balearic Islands, Spain. The study analyzed the relationships between body weight status, body image and self-weight concern, and actual attempts to lose weight by restrained eating and/or increased exercising. In terms of regulatory focus theory (RFT, we considered that efforts to lose or to maintain weight (successful or failed would be motivated either by a promotion focus (to show an attractive body, a prevention focus (to avoid social rejection of fatness, or both. Results showed that 41% of overweight boys and 25% of obese boys stated that they had never made any attempt to lose weight, and 13% and 4% in females. Around half of overweight boys and around a quarter of obese boys stated that they were Not at all concerned about weight gain, and girls’ percentages decreased to 13% and 11% respectively. By contrast 57% of normal weight girls monitored their weight and stated that they had tried to slim at least once. Weight self-regulation in females attempted to combine diet and exercise, while boys relied almost exclusively on exercise. Apparent lack of consciousness of body weight status among overweight boys, and more important, subsequent absence of behaviors to reduce their weight clearly challenges efforts to prevent obesity. We argue that several causes may be involved in this outcome, including unconscious emotional (self-defense and cognitive (dissonance mechanisms driven by perceived social stigmatization of obesity. The active participation of social values of male and female body image (strong vs. pretty and the existence of social habituation to overweight are suggested. A better knowledge of psychosocial mechanisms underlying adolescent weight self-control may improve obesity epidemics.

The Efficacy of Non-Anonymous Measures of Bullying

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, John H. F.; Myron, Rowan; Crawshaw, Martin

2005-01-01

The Olweus checklist, along with most of the questionnaires commonly used in bullying research, is anonymous. The respondent is not required to put down his/her name. This has been accepted as the "best suited" method of assessing bullying. However, this assumption has not been adequately tested, and there is contrary evidence that this…

Social anxiety impacts willingness to participate in addiction treatment.

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Book, Sarah W; Thomas, Suzanne E; Dempsey, Jared P; Randall, Patrick K; Randall, Carrie L

2009-05-01

Individuals with social anxiety have difficulty participating in group settings. Although it makes intuitive sense that social anxiety could present a challenge in addiction treatment settings, which often involve small groups and encouragement to participate in self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), to our knowledge no study has yet assessed the impact of shyness on the treatment experience. Assessment surveys were given to 110 individuals seeking intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment at three community treatment programs. Established cut-offs for presence of clinically-significant social anxiety indicated a prevalence of 37%. Controlling for depression and worry, social anxiety was a unique predictor of endorsement that shyness interfered with willingness to talk to a therapist, speak up in group therapy, attend AA/NA, and ask somebody to be a sponsor. Socially anxious substance abusers were 4-8 times more likely to endorse that shyness interfered with addiction treatment activities. These findings have clinical and research implications.

Use of a mobile social networking intervention for weight management: a mixed-methods study protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Laranjo, Liliana; Lau, Annie Y S; Martin, Paige; Tong, Huong Ly; Coiera, Enrico

2017-07-12

Obesity and physical inactivity are major societal challenges and significant contributors to the global burden of disease and healthcare costs. Information and communication technologies are increasingly being used in interventions to promote behaviour change in diet and physical activity. In particular, social networking platforms seem promising for the delivery of weight control interventions.We intend to pilot test an intervention involving the use of a social networking mobile application and tracking devices ( Fitbit Flex 2 and Fitbit Aria scale) to promote the social comparison of weight and physical activity, in order to evaluate whether mechanisms of social influence lead to changes in those outcomes over the course of the study. Mixed-methods study involving semi-structured interviews and a pre-post quasi-experimental pilot with one arm, where healthy participants in different body mass index (BMI) categories, aged between 19 and 35 years old, will be subjected to a social networking intervention over a 6-month period. The primary outcome is the average difference in weight before and after the intervention. Secondary outcomes include BMI, number of steps per day, engagement with the intervention, social support and system usability. Semi-structured interviews will assess participants' expectations and perceptions regarding the intervention. Ethics approval was granted by Macquarie University's Human Research Ethics Committee for Medical Sciences on 3 November 2016 (ethics reference number 5201600716).The social network will be moderated by a researcher with clinical expertise, who will monitor and respond to concerns raised by participants. Monitoring will involve daily observation of measures collected by the fitness tracker and the wireless scale, as well as continuous supervision of forum interactions and posts. Additionally, a protocol is in place to monitor for participant misbehaviour and direct participants-in-need to appropriate sources of help

Age Weights for Health Services Derived from the Relative Social Willingness-to-Pay Instrument.

Science.gov (United States)

Richardson, Jeff; McKie, John; Iezzi, Angelo; Maxwell, Aimee

2017-04-01

The effect of a patient's age on the social valuation of health services remains controversial, with empirical results varying in magnitude and implying a different age-value profile. This article employs a new methodology to re-examine these questions. Data were obtained from 2 independent Web-based surveys that administered the Relative Social Willingness to Pay instrument. In the first survey, the age of the patient receiving a life-saving service was varied. Patients were left with either poor mental or physical health. In the second survey, patient age was varied for a service that fully cured the patient's poor mental or physical health. In total, therefore, 4 sets of age weights were obtained: weights for life-extending services with poor physical or mental health outcomes and weights for quality-of-life improvement for patients in poor mental or physical health. Results were consistent. Increasing age was associated in each case with a monotonic decrease in the social valuation of the services. The decrease in value was quantitatively small until age 60 years. By age 80 years, the social value of services had declined by about 50%. The decline commenced at an earlier age in the context of physical health, although the magnitude of the decrement by age 80 years was unrelated to the type of service. With 1 exception, there was little difference in the valuation of services by the age of the survey respondent. Respondents aged >60 years placed a lower, not higher, value on quality-of-life improvement for elderly individuals than other respondents. There was no difference in the valuation of life-extending services.

Policy-Aware Sender Anonymity in Location-Based Services

Science.gov (United States)

Vyas, Avinash

2011-01-01

Sender anonymity in Location-based services (LBS) refers to hiding the identity of a mobile device user who sends requests to the LBS provider for services in her proximity (e.g. "find the nearest gas station etc."). The goal is to keep the requester's interest private even from attackers who (via hacking or subpoenas) gain access to the LBS…

Does spousal participation in Gamblers Anonymous benefit compulsive gamblers?

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, E E; Nora, R M

1992-12-01

Extent of gambling-free periods was compared for 90 compulsive gamblers, 44 with spouses who participated in Gamblers Anonymous and 46 with spouses who did not. Although the results were in the direction of a beneficial effect of spousal participation, the relationship was statistically nonsignificant.

The Risk of a Halo Bias as a Reason to Keep Students Anonymous during Grading

Science.gov (United States)

Malouff, John M.; Emmerton, Ashley J.; Schutte, Nicola S.

2013-01-01

Experts have advocated anonymous grading as a means of eliminating actual or perceived evaluator bias in subjective student assessment. The utility of anonymity in assessment rests on whether information derived from student identity can unduly influence evaluation. The halo effect provides a conceptual background for why a bias might occur. In…

Do weight management interventions delivered by online social networks effectively improve body weight, body composition, and chronic disease risk factors? A systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Willis, Erik A; Szabo-Reed, Amanda N; Ptomey, Lauren T; Steger, Felicia L; Honas, Jeffery J; Washburn, Richard A; Donnelly, Joseph E

2017-02-01

Introduction Currently, no systematic review/meta-analysis has examined studies that used online social networks (OSN) as a primary intervention platform. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of weight management interventions delivered through OSN. Methods PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched (January 1990-November 2015) for studies with data on the effect of OSNs on weight loss. Only primary source articles that utilized OSN as the main platform for delivery of weight management/healthy lifestyle interventions, were published in English language peer-reviewed journals, and reported outcome data on weight were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. Five articles were included in this review. Results One-hundred percent of the studies ( n = 5) reported a reduction in baseline weight. Three of the five studies (60%) reported significant decreases in body weight when OSN was paired with health educator support. Only one study reported a clinical significant weight loss of ≥5%. Conclusion Using OSN for weight management is in its early stages of development and, while these few studies show promise, more research is needed to acquire information about optimizing these interventions to increase their efficacy.

Social Support for Exercise as a Predictor of Weight and Physical Activity Status Among Puerto Rican and Mexican Men: Results From the Latino Men's Health Initiative.

Science.gov (United States)

Craven, Meredith R; Keefer, Laurie; Rademaker, Alfred; Dykema-Engblade, Amanda; Sanchez-Johnsen, Lisa

2018-07-01

Social support is an important factor in increasing positive health outcomes and positive health behaviors across a variety of disease states including obesity. However, research examining the relationship between social support for exercise and weight and physical activity status, particularly among Latino men, is lacking. This paper examined whether social support for exercise predicted weight and physical activity status and whether the direction of these relationships differ as a function of Hispanic/Latino background (Puerto Rican/Mexican). Participants were 203 men who participated in a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study addressing culture- and obesity-related variables. Both family participation social support and f amily rewards and punishment social support predicted higher weight status ( p social support did not predict weight status. The direction of the relationship between weight status and family participation social support, family rewards and punishment social support, and friend participation social support did not significantly differ as a function of Hispanic/Latino background. The direction of the relationship between physical activity status and family participation social support, family rewards and punishment social support, and friend participation social support did not significantly differ as a function of Hispanic/Latino background. Findings suggest that increased social support for exercise from family members may be focused on those who need it most-overweight and obese participants. Additional research is needed to explore sociocultural factors that may promote social support, physical activity, and weight loss and maintenance in Puerto Rican and Mexican men.

Alcoholics anonymous, other 12-step movements and psychotherapy in the US population, 1990.

Science.gov (United States)

Room, R; Greenfield, T

1993-04-01

Based on the 1990 US National Alcohol Survey, this note provides the first available comprehensive findings on self-reported utilization of a variety of sources of personal support and counselling for alcohol and other problems. Respondents were queried about lifetime attendance and number of times they went to identified sources of help in the prior year. Twelve-step groups included Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and other non-alcohol-oriented groups like Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous; additional questions inquired about support or therapy groups and individual counselling for non-alcohol problems. Of the US adult population, 9% have been to an AA meeting at some time, 3.6% in the prior year, only about one-third of these for problems of their own. About half these percentages, mostly women, have attended Al-Anon. Of the same population, 13.3% indicate ever attending a 12-step meeting (including non-alcohol-oriented groups), 5.3% in the last year. During the prior year a further 2.1% used other support/therapy groups and 5.5% sought individual counselling/therapy for personal problems other than alcohol. In contrast to this high reported utilization, only 4.9% (ever) and 2.3% (12-months) reported going to anyone including AA for a problem (of their own) related to drinking.

Who Goes There? Staying Anonymous on the Internet

Science.gov (United States)

Descy, Don E.

2009-01-01

Privacy is a thing of the past. Monitoring is everywhere. If one is looking at this online, the author is sure that lots of information has been stored and linked to anyone about that action. Nevertheless, at least people can try to play with "their" minds and surf the web anonymously. In this article, the author discusses ways to try to hide…

[Examination of the Young maladaptive schemes in a group of Gamblers Anonymous].

Science.gov (United States)

Katona, Zsuzsa; Körmendi, Attila

2012-01-01

Literature of gambling addiction has become widespread in last years. Many studies were written about the vulnerability factors helping the development of addiction, theoretical models, comorbid problems and therapy possibilities. Currently there is no integrated theoretical model that could explain sufficiently the development and maintenance of pathological gambling. The treatment issue is also unresolved. Cognitive psychology is a dynamically developing field of psychology and good results are achieved in gambling treatment with applying cognitive techniques. Jeffrey Young's schema-focused therapy is a recent theoretical and therapeutic direction within cognitive psychology which emphasizes the necessity of emotional changes beside rational ones in the interest of efficiency. The purpose of our research is to examine and analyse active maladaptive schemas among gamblers who are members of Gamblers Anonymous self-help group. 23 control persons and 23 gamblers associated with support group of Gamblers Anonymous took part in our research. The severity of gambling behaviour was measured by Gamblers Anonymous Twenty Questions. For exploring maladaptive schemas we used the shorter 114-item version of the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-S3). All the examined gamblers were considered as problem gamblers based on Gamblers Anonymous Twenty Questions. In the control group there where no active schemas while in the group of gamblers several schemas (Emotional deprivation, Self-sacrifice, Recognition seeking, Emotional inhibition, Unrelenting standards, Self-punitiveness, Insufficient self-control) showed activity. Active schemas show similarity in their matter with main establishments of researches about gamblers and support the role of impulsivity, narcissistic traits, self-medicalization and emotional deprivation in the development and maintenance of pathological gambling.

The Unequal Burden of Weight Gain: An Intersectional Approach to Understanding Social Disparities in BMI Trajectories from 1986 to 2001/2002

Science.gov (United States)

Ailshire, Jennifer A.; House, James S.

2011-01-01

The implications of recent weight gain trends for widening social disparities in body weight in the United States are unclear. Using an intersectional approach to studying inequality, and the longitudinal and nationally representative American's Changing Lives study (1986-2001/2002), we examine social disparities in body mass index trajectories…

20 Questions of Gamblers Anonymous: A Psychometric Study with Population of Spain.

Science.gov (United States)

Ursua, María Prieto; Uribelarrea, Luis Llavona

1998-01-01

The authors present a psychometric study of the questionnaire proposed by the Gamblers Anonymous organization for the self-assessment of problem gambling. The study was carried out in Spain with two samples: one of 127 problem gamblers (mean age: 41.67; sex: 78.7% men; mean duration of the problem: 5 years) and the other of 142 social gamblers (mean age: 38.46; sex: 60% men). The questionnaire was self-applied, in the presence of one of the investigators in case any doubts arose. The results indicate that it is a good screening instrument, with high reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94), good covergent validity (the correlation with the SOGS questionnaire is high (r = 0.94; p < 0.001)), good factorial validity (the questionnaire's structure is unidimensional and coherent (just one factor explains more than 50% of the variance)), and its discriminative power is high (diagnostic efficacy = 98.88%). The study offers a comparative analysis of this instrument with other measures of problem gambling, emphasizing its extraordinary performance.

Part of the Job? Workplace Violence in Massachusetts Social Service Agencies

Science.gov (United States)

Zelnick, Jennifer R.; Slayter, Elspeth; Flanzbaum, Beth; Butler, Nanci Ginty; Domingo, Beryl; Perlstein, Judith; Trust, Carol

2013-01-01

Workplace violence is a serious and surprisingly understudied occupational hazard in social service settings. The authors of this study conducted an anonymous, Internet-based survey of Massachusetts social service agencies to estimate the incidence of physical assault and verbal threat of violence in social service agencies, understand how social…

Taxonomy for and Analysis of Anonymous Communications Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2009-03-01

degradation, preservation and elimination in cyberspace to enhance the security of information assets. This includes discovery/obfuscation of...a means of communication and information dissemination, concerns about Internet privacy and security are escalating. In 1980’s, Chaum began work...variety of different systems including the T9000 Transputer AFIT/DCS/ENG/09-08 - 123 - [Bar95] and a secure ecommerce system [HaC02]. Anonymity

Bio-social Predictors of Low Birth Weight- A Prospective study at a Tertiary care Hospital of North Karnataka, India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

DP Paneru

2013-12-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Low Birth Weight is a multi-factorial problem of health and social concern Worldwide. India accounts for 40 percent of Low birth weight (LBW babies of the developing World and more than half of those in Asia. Despite the multitude of services rendered to improve maternal health care, LBW remains a public health problem in India. Objective: To determine bio-social predictors of low birth weight amongst the institutional births in North Karnataka, India. METHODS: A prospective hospital based study was conducted in Belgaum district of north Karnataka during July 2012-March 2013. A total of 426 pregnant women registered within 20 weeks of gestation during July–September 2013; eventually delivered in the same hospital were included in the study. Birth weight was measured by a digital weighing scale of 100 gram accuracy. Data were collected through individual interviews using pretested questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS (16.0 Version. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression were applied. P value < 0.05 considered significant. RESULTS: Mean age of subjects was 23.2254±3.09 years. About 96.7% were literates. Mean age at first pregnancy was 21.37±2.70 years. Low birth weight was observed amongst 22.5% new born (Mean weight: 2089.58±268.31gm. Almost 10.0% were preterm births. Paternal education and occupation, socio-economic status, religion, maternal blood group and gestation age at delivery were found to be the independent and significant bio-social factors predicting the low birth weight. About 68.0% variations in the birth weight were explained by these predictors. CONCLUSIONS: Low paternal education and occupation (farmers/laborers, low socio-economic status, maternal blood group (A is protective and prematurity were found to be independent bio-social predicators of LBW. Programme targeting paternal education may be useful and study of biological plausibility associated with the maternal blood group is recommended.

Bio-social Predictors of Low Birth Weight- A Prospective study at a Tertiary care Hospital of North Karnataka, India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D P Paneru

2013-12-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Low Birth Weight is a multi-factorial problem of health and social concern Worldwide. India accounts for 40 percent of Low birth weight (LBW babies of the developing World and more than half of those in Asia. Despite the multitude of services rendered to improve maternal health care, LBW remains a public health problem in India. Objective: To determine bio-social predictors of low birth weight amongst the institutional births in North Karnataka, India. METHODS: A prospective hospital based study was conducted in Belgaum district of north Karnataka during July 2012-March 2013. A total of 426 pregnant women registered within 20 weeks of gestation during July–September 2013; eventually delivered in the same hospital were included in the study. Birth weight was measured by a digital weighing scale of 100 gram accuracy. Data were collected through individual interviews using pretested questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS (16.0 Version. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression were applied. P value < 0.05 considered significant. RESULTS: Mean age of subjects was 23.2254±3.09 years. About 96.7% were literates. Mean age at first pregnancy was 21.37±2.70 years. Low birth weight was observed amongst 22.5% new born (Mean weight: 2089.58±268.31gm. Almost 10.0% were preterm births. Paternal education and occupation, socio-economic status, religion, maternal blood group and gestation age at delivery were found to be the independent and significant bio-social factors predicting the low birth weight. About 68.0% variations in the birth weight were explained by these predictors. CONCLUSIONS: Low paternal education and occupation (farmers/laborers, low socio-economic status, maternal blood group (A is protective and prematurity were found to be independent bio-social predicators of LBW. Programme targeting paternal education may be useful and study of biological plausibility associated with the maternal blood group is

Gamblers anonymous and cognitive-behavioral therapies for pathological gamblers.

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Petry, Nancy M

2005-01-01

Numerous types of treatments for pathological gambling have been described, but two of the most common are Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and cognitive-behavioral therapy. This paper describes some outcome data associated with the two approaches. It also reviews evidence suggesting that a combined intervention may enhance therapy engagement and reduce relapse rates.

Secure anonymous mutual authentication for star two-tier wireless body area networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Ibrahim, Maged Hamada; Kumari, Saru; Das, Ashok Kumar; Wazid, Mohammad; Odelu, Vanga

2016-10-01

Mutual authentication is a very important service that must be established between sensor nodes in wireless body area network (WBAN) to ensure the originality and integrity of the patient's data sent by sensors distributed on different parts of the body. However, mutual authentication service is not enough. An adversary can benefit from monitoring the traffic and knowing which sensor is in transmission of patient's data. Observing the traffic (even without disclosing the context) and knowing its origin, it can reveal to the adversary information about the patient's medical conditions. Therefore, anonymity of the communicating sensors is an important service as well. Few works have been conducted in the area of mutual authentication among sensor nodes in WBAN. However, none of them has considered anonymity among body sensor nodes. Up to our knowledge, our protocol is the first attempt to consider this service in a two-tier WBAN. We propose a new secure protocol to realize anonymous mutual authentication and confidential transmission for star two-tier WBAN topology. The proposed protocol uses simple cryptographic primitives. We prove the security of the proposed protocol using the widely-accepted Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic, and also through rigorous informal security analysis. In addition, to demonstrate the practicality of our protocol, we evaluate it using NS-2 simulator. BAN logic and informal security analysis prove that our proposed protocol achieves the necessary security requirements and goals of an authentication service. The simulation results show the impact on the various network parameters, such as end-to-end delay and throughput. The nodes in the network require to store few hundred bits. Nodes require to perform very few hash invocations, which are computationally very efficient. The communication cost of the proposed protocol is few hundred bits in one round of communication. Due to the low computation cost, the energy consumed by the nodes is

The impact on social capital of mobility disability and weight status: the Stockholm Public Health Cohort.

Science.gov (United States)

Norrbäck, Mattias; de Munter, Jeroen; Tynelius, Per; Ahlström, Gerd; Rasmussen, Finn

2015-04-01

People with mobility disability are more often overweight or obese and have lower social capital than people without mobility disability. It is unclear whether having a combination of mobility disability and overweight or obesity furthers negative development of social capital over time. To explore whether there were differences in social capital between normal-weight, overweight and obese people with or without mobility disability over a period of 8 years. We included 14,481 individuals (18-64 at baseline) from the Stockholm Public Health Cohort that started in 2002. Mobility disability, weight status, and social capital (structural: social activities, voting; cognitive: trust in authorities, and trust in people) were identified from self-reports. Risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals were estimated in multivariate longitudinal regression analyses. We found no significant differences in social activities and voting between the groups over time. However, when compared with the reference group, the groups with mobility disability had less trust in authorities and public institutions over time. Notably, obese people with mobility disability showed the largest decrease in trust in the police (RR = 2.29; 1.50-3.50), the parliament (RR = 2.00; 1.31-3.05), and local politicians (RR = 2.52; 1.61-3.94). People with mobility disability experience lower cognitive social capital over time than people without mobility disability. Being burdened by both mobility disability and obesity may be worse in terms of social capital than having just one of the conditions, especially regarding cognitive social capital. This finding is of public health importance, since social capital is related to health. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An Efficient Big Data Anonymization Algorithm Based on Chaos and Perturbation Techniques

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Can Eyupoglu

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The topic of big data has attracted increasing interest in recent years. The emergence of big data leads to new difficulties in terms of protection models used for data privacy, which is of necessity for sharing and processing data. Protecting individuals’ sensitive information while maintaining the usability of the data set published is the most important challenge in privacy preserving. In this regard, data anonymization methods are utilized in order to protect data against identity disclosure and linking attacks. In this study, a novel data anonymization algorithm based on chaos and perturbation has been proposed for privacy and utility preserving in big data. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated in terms of Kullback–Leibler divergence, probabilistic anonymity, classification accuracy, F-measure and execution time. The experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm is efficient and performs better in terms of Kullback–Leibler divergence, classification accuracy and F-measure compared to most of the existing algorithms using the same data set. Resulting from applying chaos to perturb data, such successful algorithm is promising to be used in privacy preserving data mining and data publishing.

Potential harms, anonymization, and the right to withdraw consent to biobank research.

Science.gov (United States)

Eriksson, Stefan; Helgesson, Gert

2005-09-01

This paper discusses the potential harms involved in biobank research and how ethical review, informed consent, withdrawals, and anonymization of samples should be handled in the light of these harms. There is less risk involved in biobank research than in human subject research; it should therefore be treated differently. In our view, anonymization should not be an automatically permissible response to requests for withdrawal. Nor should a request for withdrawal necessarily stop research on identifiable samples. Apart from not being particularly appropriate for protecting the interests of individuals, anonymization of samples has a negative impact on research. We suggest that the current view on withdrawal from research, supported by the Declaration of Helsinki and subsequent ethical guidelines, be abandoned in the context of biobank research and be replaced by an approach inspired by the Nuremberg Code. This approach requires those wishing to withdraw their samples from research to present sufficient reason for doing so. Our interpretation of 'sufficient reason' includes all those involving genuine, deeply felt concerns that are not based on misconceptions. Still, this underlines the fact that we all share a responsibility for health research and that no one should take withdrawal from biobank research lightly.

Design and implementation of a randomized controlled social and mobile weight loss trial for young adults (project SMART).

Science.gov (United States)

Patrick, K; Marshall, S J; Davila, E P; Kolodziejczyk, J K; Fowler, J H; Calfas, K J; Huang, J S; Rock, C L; Griswold, W G; Gupta, A; Merchant, G; Norman, G J; Raab, F; Donohue, M C; Fogg, B J; Robinson, T N

2014-01-01

To describe the theoretical rationale, intervention design, and clinical trial of a two-year weight control intervention for young adults deployed via social and mobile media. A total of 404 overweight or obese college students from three Southern California universities (M(age) = 22( ± 4) years; M(BMI) = 29( ± 2.8); 70% female) were randomized to participate in the intervention or to receive an informational web-based weight loss program. The intervention is based on behavioral theory and integrates intervention elements across multiple touch points, including Facebook, text messaging, smartphone applications, blogs, and e-mail. Participants are encouraged to seek social support among their friends, self-monitor their weight weekly, post their health behaviors on Facebook, and e-mail their weight loss questions/concerns to a health coach. The intervention is adaptive because new theory-driven and iteratively tailored intervention elements are developed and released over the course of the two-year intervention in response to patterns of use and user feedback. Measures of body mass index, waist circumference, diet, physical activity, sedentary behavior, weight management practices, smoking, alcohol, sleep, body image, self-esteem, and depression occur at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. Currently, all participants have been recruited, and all are in the final year of the trial. Theory-driven, evidence-based strategies for physical activity, sedentary behavior, and dietary intake can be embedded in an intervention using social and mobile technologies to promote healthy weight-related behaviors in young adults. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Efficient Asymmetric Index Encapsulation Scheme for Anonymous Content Centric Networking

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Rong Ma

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Content Centric Networking (CCN is an effective communication paradigm that well matches the features of wireless environments. To be considered a viable candidate in the emerging wireless networks, despite the clear benefits of location-independent security, CCN must at least have parity with existing solutions for confidential and anonymous communication. This paper designs a new cryptographic scheme, called Asymmetric Index Encapsulation (AIE, that enables the router to test whether an encapsulated header matches the token without learning anything else about both of them. We suggest using the AIE as the core protocol of anonymous Content Centric Networking. A construction of AIE which strikes a balance between efficiency and security is given. The scheme is proved to be secure based on the DBDH assumption in the random oracle with tight reduction, while the encapsulated header and the token in our system consist of only three elements.

Towards Predicting Efficient and Anonymous Tor Circuits

OpenAIRE

Barton, Armon; Imani, Mohsen; Ming, Jiang; Wright, Matthew

2018-01-01

The Tor anonymity system provides online privacy for millions of users, but it is slower than typical web browsing. To improve Tor performance, we propose PredicTor, a path selection technique that uses a Random Forest classifier trained on recent measurements of Tor to predict the performance of a proposed path. If the path is predicted to be fast, then the client builds a circuit using those relays. We implemented PredicTor in the Tor source code and show through live Tor experiments and Sh...

Psychosocial factors related to gambling abstinence and relapse in members of gamblers anonymous.

Science.gov (United States)

Oei, Tian P S; Gordon, Leon M

2008-03-01

Problem gamblers account for almost one-third of the industry's total revenue with the adverse effects of problem gambling including significant financial loss, legal and occupational difficulties, family problems, psychological distress and suicide. As such, it is important to understand the influential factors in gambling abstinence and relapse, which will assist in the development of relapse prevention methods in therapeutic treatment regimes. This paper reported the role of a set of seven predictors in distinguishing between abstinent and relapsed gamblers among 75 Gambling Anonymous (GA) members (55 males; 20 females; Mean age 45 years) in Southeast Queensland. The measures taken were meeting Attendance and Participation, Social Support, God Belief, Belief in a Higher Power, Working the 12-steps of Recovery, Gambling Urges and Erroneous Cognitions. Discriminant analysis revealed that the variables separating the two groups were significant, suggesting that GA members achieving abstinence could be distinguished from those who relapsed, with Attendance and Participation, and Social Support contributing the greatest influence on member's ability to abstain from gambling. The findings suggested that GA member's involvement in meetings, and support from family and friends had significant impact on their gambling abstinence. In contrast, increased gambling urges and erroneous cognitions increased the chance of relapse.

Tweet for health: using an online social network to examine temporal trends in weight loss-related posts.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner-McGrievy, Gabrielle M; Beets, Michael W

2015-06-01

Few studies have used social networking sites to track temporal trends in health-related posts, particularly around weight loss. To examine the temporal relationship of Twitter messages about weight loss over 1 year (2012). Temporal trends in #weightloss mentions and #fitness, #diet, and #health tweets which also had the word "weight" in them were examined using three a priori time periods: (1) holidays: pre-winter holidays, holidays, and post-holidays; (2) Season: winter and summer; and (3) New Year's: pre-New Year's and post-New Year's. Regarding #weightloss, there were 145 (95 % CI 79, 211) more posts/day during holidays and 143 (95 % CI 76, 209) more posts/day after holidays as compared to 480 pre-holiday posts/day; 232 (95 % CI 178, 286) more posts/day during the winter versus summer (441 posts/day); there was no difference in posts around New Year's. Examining social networks for trends in health-related posts may aid in timing interventions when individuals are more likely to be discussing weight loss.

Anonymity-Preserving Public-Key Encryption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kohlweiss, Markulf; Maurer, Ueli; Onete, Cristina

2013-01-01

security properties have been proposed. We investigate constructions as well as limitations for preserving receiver anonymity when using public-key encryption (PKE). We use the constructive cryptography approach by Maurer and Renner and interpret cryptographic schemes as constructions of a certain ideal...... literature (IND-CCA, key-privacy, weak robustness). We also show that a desirable stronger variant, preventing the adversary from selective ”trial-deliveries” of messages, is unfortunately unachievable by any PKE scheme, no matter how strong. The constructive approach makes the guarantees achieved...... by applying a cryptographic scheme explicit in the constructed (ideal) resource; this specifies the exact requirements for the applicability of a cryptographic scheme in a given context. It also allows to decide which of the existing security properties of such a cryptographic scheme are adequate...

An Analysis of College Students' Anonymous Questions about Human Sexuality.

Science.gov (United States)

Valois, Robert F.; Waring, Kathryn A.

1991-01-01

Study analyzed the frequency and type of questions about sexuality submitted anonymously by college students in health education courses over five semesters. The most common categories were sexual arousal/response; general anatomy/physiology; contraception; dating/relationships; pregnancy/fertility; and sexually transmitted diseases. The appendix…

Vaping to lose weight: Predictors of adult e-cigarette use for weight loss or control.

Science.gov (United States)

Morean, Meghan E; Wedel, Amelia V

2017-03-01

Some traditional cigarette smokers are motivated to smoke to lose weight or control their weight. The current study evaluated whether a subset of adult e-cigarette users reported vaping to lose or control their weight and examined potential predictors of vaping for weight management. Adult e-cigarette users (n=459) who reported wanting to lose weight or maintain their weight completed an anonymous online survey. Participants reported on demographics, vaping frequency, e-cigarette nicotine content, cigarette smoking status, preferred e-cigarette/e-liquid flavors, current weight status (i.e., overweight, underweight), use of dieting strategies associated with anorexia and bulimia, lifetime history of binge eating, self-discipline, and impulse control. Binary logistic regression was used to examine whether vaping for weight loss/control was associated with the aforementioned variables. Participants who reported vaping for weight loss/control (13.5%) were more likely to vape frequently (adjOR=1.15; 95% CI [1.00, 1.31]); be overweight (adjOR=2.80; [1.33, 5.90]); restrict calories (adjOR=2.23; [1.13, 4.42]); have poor impulse control (adjOR=0.59; [0.41, 0.86]); and prefer coffee- (adjOR=2.92; [1.47, 5.80]) or vanilla-flavored e-liquid (adjOR=7.44; [1.56, 36.08]). A subset of adult e-cigarette users reported vaping for weight loss/control, raising concerns about expanded, scientifically unsubstantiated uses of e-cigarettes. Identifying where individuals obtain information about vaping for weight loss (e.g., e-cigarette ads, Internet) and whether weight-related motives promote e-cigarette initiation among e-cigarette naïve individuals is important to informing regulatory efforts. Further research also is needed to better understand the link between e-liquid flavors and weight loss motivations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Enhancing Security Research of Tor Anonymous Communication to Against DDos Attacks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Feng Tao

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Tor (The Second Onion Router is modified by the first generation onion router and known as the most prevalent anonymous communication system. According to the advantage of low latency, high confidentiality of transmission content, high security of communication channels and et al., Tor is widely used in anonymous Web browsing, instant message and so on. However, the vulnerability and blemish of Tor affect system security. An identity and Signcryption-based concurrent signature scheme was used to prevent the behaviors of attackers from inserting controlled nodes and conspiring to make DDos attacks. The integrated security of Tor system was enhanced in our scheme. In addition we have proved the scheme.

Practical m-k-Anonymization for Collaborative Data Publishing without Trusted Third Party

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Jingyu Hua

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In collaborative data publishing (CDP, an m-adversary attack refers to a scenario where up to m malicious data providers collude to infer data records contributed by other providers. Existing solutions either rely on a trusted third party (TTP or introduce expensive computation and communication overheads. In this paper, we present a practical distributed k-anonymization scheme, m-k-anonymization, designed to defend against m-adversary attacks without relying on any TTPs. We then prove its security in the semihonest adversary model and demonstrate how an extension of the scheme can also be proven secure in a stronger adversary model. We also evaluate its efficiency using a commonly used dataset.

The long path to pregnancy: early experience with dual anonymous gamete donation in a European in vitro fertilisation referral centre

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sills Eric

2010-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background This investigation describes features of patients undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF and embryo transfer (ET where both gametes were obtained from anonymous donors. Methods Gamete unsuitability or loss was confirmed in both members of seven otherwise healthy couples presenting for reproductive endocrinology consultation over a 12-month interval in Ireland. IVF was undertaken with fresh oocytes provided by anonymous donors in Ukraine; frozen sperm (anonymous donor was obtained from a licensed tissue establishment. For recipients, saline-enhanced sonography was used to assess intrauterine contour with endometrial preparation via transdermal estrogen. Results Among commissioning couples, mean±SD female and male age was 41.9 ± 3.7 and 44.6 ± 3.5 yrs, respectively. During this period, female age for non dual anonymous gamete donation IVF patients was 37.9 ± 3 yrs (p Conclusions Mean age of females undergoing dual anonymous donor gamete donation with IVF is significantly higher than the background IVF patient population. Even when neither partner is able to contribute any gametes for IVF, the clinical pregnancy rate per transfer can be satisfactory if both anonymous egg and sperm donation are used concurrently. Our report emphasises the role of pre-treatment counselling in dual anonymous gamete donation, and presents a coordinated screening and treatment approach in IVF where this option may be contemplated.

Social support for healthy behaviors: Scale psychometrics and prediction of weight loss among women in a behavioral program

Science.gov (United States)

Kiernan, Michaela; Moore, Susan D.; Schoffman, Danielle E.; Lee, Katherine; King, Abby C.; Taylor, C. Barr; Kiernan, Nancy Ellen; Perri, Michael G.

2015-01-01

Social support could be a powerful weight-loss treatment moderator or mediator but is rarely assessed. We assessed the psychometric properties, initial levels, and predictive validity of a measure of perceived social support and sabotage from friends and family for healthy eating and physical activity (eight subscales). Overweight/obese women randomized to one of two 6-month, group-based behavioral weight-loss programs (N=267; mean BMI 32.1±3.5; 66.3% White) completed subscales at baseline, and weight loss was assessed at 6 months. Internal consistency, discriminant validity, and content validity were excellent for support subscales and adequate for sabotage subscales; qualitative responses revealed novel deliberate instances not reflected in current sabotage items. Most women (>75%) “never” or “rarely” experienced support from friends or family. Using non-parametric classification methods, we identified two subscales—support from friends for healthy eating and support from family for physical activity—that predicted three clinically meaningful subgroups who ranged in likelihood of losing ≥5% of initial weight at 6 months. Women who “never” experienced family support were least likely to lose weight (45.7% lost weight) whereas women who experienced both frequent friend and family support were more likely to lose weight (71.6% lost weight). Paradoxically, women who “never” experienced friend support were most likely to lose weight (80.0% lost weight), perhaps because the group-based programs provided support lacking from friendships. Psychometrics for support subscales were excellent; initial support was rare; and the differential roles of friend versus family support could inform future targeted weight-loss interventions to subgroups at risk. PMID:21996661

K-Anonymity Based Privacy Risk Budgeting System for Interactive Record Linkage

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hye-Chung Kum

2017-04-01

The k-anonymity based privacy risk budgeting system provides a mechanism where we can concretely reason about the tradeoff between the privacy risks due to information disclosed, accuracy gained, and biases reduced during interactive record linkage.

[Comment on “Anonymous reviews: Self-serving, counterproductive, and unacceptable”] from R.E. Criss and A.M. Hofmeister

Science.gov (United States)

Criss, Robert E.; Hofmeister, Anne M.

We share many of the experiences and most of the sentiments relayed by Myrl Beck in his 1 July contribution to the Eos Forum, as well as those of a similar nature expressed by Alexander McBirney in his March 2003 commentary in GSA Today. We are in fact delighted that senior scientists are speaking up about the unsatisfactory nature of anonymous reviews. However, we believe they understate the problems, partly because the situation is worsening with time. Moreover, the brunt of such problems is disproportionately felt not by emeritus professors but by young scientists, women, and minorities, and this is the crux of the issue.This year, we have, like Beck, received rejections based on comments by two anonymous reviewers and an anonymous associate editor. We have also received rejections from anonymous associate editors based on a single constructive review requesting minor revision, along with an anonymous hostile “review” that could have been written about any manuscript on any topic by any author. More common than these are rejections from identified associate editors based on one or two anonymous reviews, which more often than not err on most of the points made, and in two cases dispute work that resulted in Nobel Prizes. We have examples this year of each type where the senior authors are recent Ph.D.s, whose vulnerabilities underscore the reprehensible nature of this “process.”

Social attribution skills of children born preterm at very low birth weight.

Science.gov (United States)

Williamson, Kathryn E; Jakobson, Lorna S

2014-11-01

Children born prematurely at very low birth weight (social functioning, including autism spectrum disorders (e.g., Johnson et al., 2010). In the current study, we used the Happé-Frith animated triangles task (Abell, Happé, & Frith, 2000) to study social attribution skills in this population. In this task, typical viewers attribute intentionality and mental states to shapes, based on characteristics of their movements. Participants included 34 preterm children and 36 full-term controls, aged 8-11 years. Groups were comparable in terms of age at test, gender, handedness, and socioeconomic status; they also performed similarly on tests of selective attention/processing speed and verbal intelligence. Relative to full-term peers, preterm children's descriptions of the animations were less appropriate overall; they also overattributed intentionality/mental states to randomly moving shapes and underattributed intentionality/mental states to shapes that seemed to be interacting socially. Impairments in the ability to infer the putative mental states of triangles from movement cues alone were most evident in children displaying more "autistic-like" traits, and this may reflect atypical development of and/or functioning in, or atypical connections between, parts of the social brain.

Anonymous letters? DNA and fingerprints technologies combined to solve a case.

Science.gov (United States)

Barbaro, A; Cormaci, P; Teatino, A; La Marca, A; Barbaro, A

2004-12-02

Two brothers, living in two different cities, received two different anonymous letters. We performed latent prints development and DNA research on the letters and also on a glass used by a cousin suspected to be the letters' sender.

Forming Circle Formations of Anonymous Mobile Agents With Order Preservation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, Chen; Xie, Guangming; Cao, Ming

2013-01-01

We propose distributed control laws for a group of anonymous mobile agents to form desired circle formations when the agents move in the one-dimensional space of a circle. The agents are modeled by kinematic points. They share the common knowledge of the orientation of the circle, but are oblivious

Democratic Education Online: Combating Racialized Aggressions on Social Media

Science.gov (United States)

Gin, Kevin J.; Martínez-Alemán, Ana M.; Knight, Sarah; Radimer, Scott; Lewis, Jonathan; Rowan-Kenyon, Heather T.

2016-01-01

In the 21st century, mobile, low-friction, and easy to use social media have changed the landscape of college campuses. Social media have opened the doors for racial hostility to be displayed on campus in new ways and have been widely used to express racial aggressions toward students of color. Anonymity allows these behaviors to be freely enacted…

Darknet and bitcoin, the obscure and anonymous side of the internet in healthcare.

Science.gov (United States)

Masoni, Marco; Guelfi, Maria Renza; Gensini, Gian Franco

2016-11-14

Illegal activities prosecutable by law in the real life can be committed on the internet alike. In the healthcare domain, we refer mainly to selling of illegal and counterfeit drugs, exchange of pedo-pornographic material and marketing of stolen medical records. These illegal activities are made easier by recent developments of the Internet that medical community must be aware of: darknet and bitcoin. The first allows anonymous surfing and the last anonymous financial transactions. After discussing which healthcare areas are affected by these technological developments of the Internet and the deriving consequences, then the Authors express their opinion on what actions can be taken to protect internet community.

Suicidal behavior among members of Gamblers Anonymous.

Science.gov (United States)

Frank, M L; Lester, D; Wexler, A

1991-09-01

A national sample of 500 members of Gamblers Anonymous was surveyed by mail in order to gather information on suicidal history. One hundred sixty two usable surveys were returned representing 32.4% of the original sample. Compulsive gamblers who had a history of suicidal preoccupation began gambling at an earlier age than nonsuicidal gamblers and were more likely to have stolen to support their gambling. They also tended to have addicted relatives and children more than nonsuicidal gamblers did. The data suggest that those gamblers who had been suicidal tend to be more serious gamblers than nonsuicidal respondents.

Anonymity communication VPN and Tor: a comparative study

Science.gov (United States)

Ramadhani, E.

2018-03-01

VPN and Tor is a technology based on anonymity communication. These two technologies have their advantage and disadvantage. The objective of this paper is to find the difference between VPN and Tor technologies by comparing their security of communication on the public network based on the CIA triad concept. The comparative study in this paper is based on the survey method. At last, the result of this paper is a recommendation on when to use a VPN and Tor to secure communication

A Test of Social Cognitive Theory to Explain Men's Physical Activity During a Gender-Tailored Weight Loss Program.

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Myles D; Plotnikoff, Ronald C; Collins, Clare E; Callister, Robin; Morgan, Philip J

2016-11-01

Physical inactivity is a leading contributor to the burden of disease in men. Social-cognitive theories may improve physical activity (PA) interventions by identifying which variables to target to maximize intervention impact. This study tested the utility of Bandura's social cognitive theory (SCT) to explain men's PA during a 3-month weight loss program. Participants were 204 overweight/obese men (M [SD] age = 46.6 [11.3] years; body mass index = 33.1 [3.5] kg/m 2 ). A longitudinal, latent variable structural equation model tested the associations between SCT constructs (i.e., self-efficacy, outcome expectations, intention, and social support) and self-reported moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and examined the total PA variance explained by SCT. After controlling for Time 1 cognitions and behavior, the model fit the data well (χ 2 = 73.9, degrees of freedom = 39, p social support. This study provides some evidence supporting the tenets of SCT when examining PA behavior in overweight and obese men. Future PA and weight loss interventions for men may benefit by targeting self-efficacy and intention, but the utility of targeting social support and outcome expectations requires further examination. © The Author(s) 2015.

A Source Anonymity-Based Lightweight Secure AODV Protocol for Fog-Based MANET.

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Weidong; Zhang, Wuxiong; Xiao, Jinchao; Yang, Yang; Chen, Wei

2017-06-17

Fog-based MANET (Mobile Ad hoc networks) is a novel paradigm of a mobile ad hoc network with the advantages of both mobility and fog computing. Meanwhile, as traditional routing protocol, ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol has been applied widely in fog-based MANET. Currently, how to improve the transmission performance and enhance security are the two major aspects in AODV's research field. However, the researches on joint energy efficiency and security seem to be seldom considered. In this paper, we propose a source anonymity-based lightweight secure AODV (SAL-SAODV) routing protocol to meet the above requirements. In SAL-SAODV protocol, source anonymous and secure transmitting schemes are proposed and applied. The scheme involves the following three parts: the source anonymity algorithm is employed to achieve the source node, without being tracked and located; the improved secure scheme based on the polynomial of CRC-4 is applied to substitute the RSA digital signature of SAODV and guarantee the data integrity, in addition to reducing the computation and energy consumption; the random delayed transmitting scheme (RDTM) is implemented to separate the check code and transmitted data, and achieve tamper-proof results. The simulation results show that the comprehensive performance of the proposed SAL-SAODV is a trade-off of the transmission performance, energy efficiency, and security, and better than AODV and SAODV.

The weight-loss experience: a qualitative exploration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David Rogerson

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Long-term weight management consists of weight-loss, weight-loss maintenance, and weight-gain stages. Qualitative insights into weight management are now appearing in the literature however research appears to be biased towards explorations of weight-loss maintenance. The qualitative understanding of weight loss, which begets weight-loss maintenance and might establish the experiences and behaviours necessary for successful long-term weight management, is comparatively under-investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate the weight-loss experiences of a sample of participants not aligned to clinical intervention research, in order to understand the weight-loss experiences of a naturalistic sample. Methods Participants (n = 8 with weight-loss (n = 4 and weight-maintenance experiences (n = 4 were interviewed using a semi-structured interview to understand the weight-loss experience. Interview data was analysed thematically using Framework Analysis and was underpinned by realist meta-theory. Results Weight loss was experienced as an enduring challenge, where factors that assisted weight loss were developed and experienced dichotomously to factors that hindered it. Participants described barriers to (dichotomous thinking, environments, social pressures and weight centeredness and facilitators of (mindfulness, knowledge, exercise, readiness to change, structure, self-monitoring and social support their weight-loss goals in rich detail, highlighting that weight loss was a complex experience. Conclusions Weight loss was a difficult task, with physical, social, behavioural and environmental elements that appeared to assist and inhibit weight-loss efforts concurrently. Health professionals might need to better understand the day-to-day challenges of dieters in order to provide more effective, tailored treatments. Future research should look to investigate the psycho-social consequences of weight-loss dieting, in

Self-esteem, body-esteem, emotional intelligence, and social anxiety in a college sample: the moderating role of weight.

Science.gov (United States)

Abdollahi, Abbas; Abu Talib, Mansor

2016-01-01

To examine the relationships between self-esteem, body-esteem, emotional intelligence, and social anxiety, as well as to examine the moderating role of weight between exogenous variables and social anxiety, 520 university students completed the self-report measures. Structural equation modeling revealed that individuals with low self-esteem, body-esteem, and emotional intelligence were more likely to report social anxiety. The findings indicated that obese and overweight individuals with low body-esteem, emotional intelligence, and self-esteem had higher social anxiety than others. Our results highlight the roles of body-esteem, self-esteem, and emotional intelligence as influencing factors for reducing social anxiety.

Anonymous sex and HIV risk practices among men using the Internet specifically to find male partners for unprotected sex.

Science.gov (United States)

Klein, H

2012-06-01

To examine the popularity of anonymous sex practices among men using the Internet to find male partners for unprotected sex, and how anonymous sex relates to involvement in other HIV-related risk behaviours, and to investigate the factors associated with engaging in anonymous sex. Structured telephone interviews were conducted with men who used the Internet specifically to find male partners for unprotected sex. Random sampling from 16 websites was used to obtain a national sample. The data reported in this paper were based on quantitative interviews collected with a cross-sectional study design. Between January 2008 and May 2009, confidential telephone interviews lasting approximately 1-2 h were completed with 332 men. Participants were paid $35 for their participation. Most of the men (67.4%) liked anonymous sex, and slightly more than half (51.2%) had engaged in the behaviour during the month prior to interview. Involvement in anonymous sex was associated with greater involvement in a variety of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related risk practices, such as illegal drug use, number of sex partners, and amount of unprotected sex. Four factors were associated with having vs not having anonymous sex: (1) being HIV positive; (2) answering all of the HIV-related knowledge questions correctly; (3) deriving greater enjoyment from having sex in public places, such as parks, public toilets, or adult book shops; and (4) greater impulsivity. Seven factors were associated with greater vs lesser involvement in anonymous sex among those practising the behaviour: (1) being involved in a relationship with a long-term partner; (2) liking to have sex in public places; (3) using bareback-oriented websites to identify sex partners; (4) greater impulsivity; (5) low level of condom use self-efficacy; (6) greater knowledge about HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; and either (7a) severe childhood maltreatment or (7b) Caucasian race. Men in this population often sought

Is cyberbullying worse than traditional bullying? Examining the differential roles of medium, publicity, and anonymity for the perceived severity of bullying.

Science.gov (United States)

Sticca, Fabio; Perren, Sonja

2013-05-01

Cyberbullying, a modern form of bullying performed using electronic forms of contact (e.g., SMS, MMS, Facebook, YouTube), has been considered as being worse than traditional bullying in its consequences for the victim. This difference was mainly attributed to some specific aspect that are believed to distinguish cyberbullying from traditional bullying: an increased potential for a large audience, an increased potential for anonymous bullying, lower levels of direct feedback, decreased time and space limits, and lower levels of supervision. The present studies investigated the relative importance of medium (traditional vs. cyber), publicity (public vs. private), and bully's anonymity (anonymous vs. not anonymous) for the perceived severity of hypothetical bullying scenarios among a sample of Swiss seventh- and eight-graders (study 1: 49% female, mean age = 13.7; study 2: 49% female, mean age = 14.2). Participants ranked a set of hypothetical bullying scenarios from the most severe one to the least severe one. The scenarios were experimentally manipulated based on the aspect of medium and publicity (study 1), and medium and anonymity (study 2). Results showed that public scenarios were perceived as worse than private ones, and that anonymous scenarios were perceived as worse than not anonymous ones. Cyber scenarios generally were perceived as worse than traditional ones, although effect sizes were found to be small. These results suggest that the role of medium is secondary to the role of publicity and anonymity when it comes to evaluating bullying severity. Therefore, cyberbullying is not a priori perceived as worse than traditional bullying. Implications of the results for cyberbullying prevention and intervention are discussed.

Distance learning strategies for weight management utilizing social media: A comparison of phone conference call versus social media platform. Rationale and design for a randomized study.

Science.gov (United States)

Willis, Erik A; Szabo-Reed, Amanda N; Ptomey, Lauren T; Steger, Felicia L; Honas, Jeffery J; Al-Hihi, Eyad M; Lee, Robert; Vansaghi, Lisa; Washburn, Richard A; Donnelly, Joseph E

2016-03-01

Management of obesity in the context of the primary care physician visit is of limited efficacy in part because of limited ability to engage participants in sustained behavior change between physician visits. Therefore, healthcare systems must find methods to address obesity that reach beyond the walls of clinics and hospitals and address the issues of lifestyle modification in a cost-conscious way. The dramatic increase in technology and online social networks may present healthcare providers with innovative ways to deliver weight management programs that could have an impact on health care at the population level. A randomized study will be conducted on 70 obese adults (BMI 30.0-45.0 kg/m(2)) to determine if weight loss (6 months) is equivalent between weight management interventions utilizing behavioral strategies by either a conference call or social media approach. The primary outcome, body weight, will be assessed at baseline and 6 months. Secondary outcomes including waist circumference, energy and macronutrient intake, and physical activity will be assessed on the same schedule. In addition, a cost analysis and process evaluation will be completed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Applying LU Decomposition of Matrices to Design Anonymity Bilateral Remote User Authentication Scheme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiong Li

2013-01-01

Full Text Available We apply LU decomposition of matrices to present an anonymous bilateral authentication scheme. This paper aims at improving security and providing more excellent performances for remote user authentication scheme. The proposed scheme can provide bilateral authentication and session key agreement, can quickly check the validity of the input password, and can really protect the user anonymity. The security of the proposed scheme is based on the discrete logarithm problem (DLP, Diffie-Hellman problem (DHP, and the one-way hash function. It can resist various attacks such as insider attack, impersonation attack, server spoofing attack, and stolen smart card attack. Moreover, the presented scheme is computationally efficient for real-life implementation.

Three-factor anonymous authentication and key agreement scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Arshad, Hamed; Nikooghadam, Morteza

2014-12-01

Nowadays, with comprehensive employment of the internet, healthcare delivery services is provided remotely by telecare medicine information systems (TMISs). A secure mechanism for authentication and key agreement is one of the most important security requirements for TMISs. Recently, Tan proposed a user anonymity preserving three-factor authentication scheme for TMIS. The present paper shows that Tan's scheme is vulnerable to replay attacks and Denial-of-Service attacks. In order to overcome these security flaws, a new and efficient three-factor anonymous authentication and key agreement scheme for TMIS is proposed. Security and performance analysis shows superiority of the proposed scheme in comparison with previously proposed schemes that are related to security of TMISs.

Contentious branding : Reassembling social movements through digital mediators

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Beraldo, D.

2017-01-01

This dissertation wishes to contribute to the sociological debate on protest movements by developing the notion of ‘contentious branding’ as a reflection emerging from the digital exploration of two empirical cases that challenge social movement theory: Occupy and Anonymous. The research was

Smartphone Usage, Social Media Engagement, and Willingness to Participate in mHealth Weight Management Research among African American Women

Science.gov (United States)

James, Delores C. S.; Harville, Cedric, II

2018-01-01

Background: African American women (AAW) are in a unique position to be recruited into mobile (mHealth) weight management research and programs due to their high rates of obesity and their high ownership of smartphones. Aim: This study examined smartphone usage, social media engagement, and willingness to participate in mHealth weight management…

Alone on the Inside: The Impact of Social Isolation and Helping Others on AOD Use and Criminal Activity

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Byron R.; Pagano, Maria E.; Lee, Matthew T.; Post, Stephen G.

2018-01-01

Because addiction is a socially isolating disease, social support for recovery is an important element of treatment planning. This study examines the relationship between social isolation, giving and receiving social support in Alcoholics Anonymous during treatment, and post-treatment outcomes among juvenile offenders court-referred to addiction…

Gamblers Anonymous as a Recovery Pathway: A Scoping Review

OpenAIRE

Schuler, Andr?e; Ferentzy, Peter; Turner, Nigel E.; Skinner, Wayne; McIsaac, Kathryn E.; Ziegler, Carolyn P.; Matheson, Flora I.

2016-01-01

Given the preponderance of Gamblers Anonymous (GA), there has been relatively little effort to explore the existing evidence base on its effectiveness as a recovery approach for problem gambling. To remedy this gap in the literature we conducted a scoping review of the literature on mutual aid for individuals experiencing problem gambling published between 2002 and 2015. We searched 13 databases and reviewed reference lists and websites of relevant organizations. We reviewed records for eligi...

Towards an anonymous access control and accountability scheme for cloud computing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Meiko; Schäge, Sven; Schwenk, Jörg

2010-01-01

An important aspect of trust in cloud computing consists in preventing the cloud provider from misusing the user's data. In this work-in-progress paper, we propose the approach of data anonymization to solve this problem. As this directly leads to problems of cloud usage accounting, we also propose...

Faithful but Different: Clinical Social Workers Speak Out about Career Motivation and Professional Values

Science.gov (United States)

Bradley, Carolyn; Maschi, Tina; O'Brien, Helen; Morgen, Keith; Ward, Kelly

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to describe licensed clinical social workers' (LCSWs) professional motivation to pursue a social work career and the decision to enter clinical practice. It used a probability sample of 245 New Jersey LCSWs and the Social Work Values Survey as part of an anonymous self-administered mail survey. Descriptive analyses…

Personal, social and environmental correlates of healthy weight status amongst mothers from socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods: findings from the READI study

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Crawford David

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers are at high risk of obesity, yet the aetiology of obesity in this group remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to examine the perceived personal, social and physical environmental factors associated with resilience to obesity among mothers from socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Methods Survey data were provided by a cohort of 1840 women aged 18-46 years with dependent children (aged 0-18 years from 40 urban and 40 rural socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods across Victoria, Australia. Mothers responded to a number of questions relating to personal, social and environmental influences on their physical activity and eating habits. Mothers' weight status was classified as healthy weight (BMI: 18.5-24.99, overweight (BMI: 25-29.99 or obese (BMI: 30+. Results Mothers' weight status was bivariably associated with factors from all three domains (personal, social and physical environmental. In a multivariable model, mothers' perceived ability to make time for healthy eating (OR = 1.34 and physical activity (OR = 1.11 despite family commitments, and the frequency with which families ate healthy low-fat foods with mothers (OR = 1.28 remained significantly positively associated with healthy weight status. The frequency with which families encouraged eating healthy low-fat foods remained negatively associated (OR = 0.81 with weight status; ie greater encouragement was associated with less healthy weight status. Conclusions Drawing on the characteristics of mothers resilient to obesity might assist in developing intervention strategies to help other mothers in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods to manage their weight. Such strategies might focus on planning for and prioritising time for healthy eating and physical activity behaviours, and including family members in and encouraging family mealtimes.

Weight loss expectations and body dissatisfaction in young women attempting to lose weight.

Science.gov (United States)

Siervo, M; Montagnese, C; Muscariello, E; Evans, E; Stephan, B C M; Nasti, G; Papa, A; Iannetti, E; Colantuoni, A

2014-04-01

Unrealistic weight loss expectations (WLEs) and greater body dissatisfaction may be associated with the poor long-term outcomes of dietary and lifestyle weight loss treatments. We evaluated the association between body size, WLEs and body dissatisfaction in young women attempting to lose weight. Forty-four young healthy women [age range 18-35 years, body mass index (BMI) range 23-40 kg/m2] were recruited. Women were classified as obese (BMI ≥ 30.0 kg/m2) and non-obese (BMI social (career, family acceptance, peer acceptance, mass media, social pressure) factors. Individual WLEs were compared with recommended clinical targets (5%, 10% and 20%) for weight loss. Body dissatisfaction was lower in non-obese subjects and was directly associated with BMI (P media, whereas they perceived that family and friends were supportive of a lesser degree of weight loss. We observed a mismatch between clinical and personal expectations, and social pressure and interpersonal relationships appear to have a prominent role with respect to influencing the association. © 2013 The Authors Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics © 2013 The British Dietetic Association Ltd.

The long path to pregnancy: early experience with dual anonymous gamete donation in a European in vitro fertilisation referral centre

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Sills, Eric Scott

2010-08-11

Abstract Background This investigation describes features of patients undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and embryo transfer (ET) where both gametes were obtained from anonymous donors. Methods Gamete unsuitability or loss was confirmed in both members of seven otherwise healthy couples presenting for reproductive endocrinology consultation over a 12-month interval in Ireland. IVF was undertaken with fresh oocytes provided by anonymous donors in Ukraine; frozen sperm (anonymous donor) was obtained from a licensed tissue establishment. For recipients, saline-enhanced sonography was used to assess intrauterine contour with endometrial preparation via transdermal estrogen. Results Among commissioning couples, mean±SD female and male age was 41.9 ± 3.7 and 44.6 ± 3.5 yrs, respectively. During this period, female age for non dual anonymous gamete donation IVF patients was 37.9 ± 3 yrs (p < 0.001). Infertility duration was ≥3 yrs for couples enrolling in dual gamete donation, and each had ≥2 prior failed fertility treatments using native oocytes. All seven recipient couples proceeded to embryo transfer, although one patient had two transfers. Clinical pregnancy was achieved for 5\\/7 (71.4%) patients. Non-transferred cryopreserved embryos were available for all seven couples. Conclusions Mean age of females undergoing dual anonymous donor gamete donation with IVF is significantly higher than the background IVF patient population. Even when neither partner is able to contribute any gametes for IVF, the clinical pregnancy rate per transfer can be satisfactory if both anonymous egg and sperm donation are used concurrently. Our report emphasises the role of pre-treatment counselling in dual anonymous gamete donation, and presents a coordinated screening and treatment approach in IVF where this option may be contemplated.

Perceived neighborhood walkability and physical exercise: An examination of casual communication in a social process.

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Yamamoto, Masahiro; Jo, Hyerim

2018-05-01

Despite the accumulated evidence for the environmental correlates of physical activity, social processes underlying this association are not entirely clear. This study positions communication characterized by weak ties as a social mechanism linking neighborhood walkability with physical exercise. Data from a survey of Chicago residents show that perceived neighborhood walkability is positively related to frequency of weak-tie communication. Frequency of weak-tie communication is related positively to perceived social cohesion and negatively to anonymity, both of which are significantly related to frequency of physical exercise in the neighborhood. Data also show a sequential indirect relationship involving perceived neighborhood walkability, weak-tie communication, anonymity, and physical exercise. Implications are discussed in terms of the role of communication in promoting locality-based physical exercise. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Remote User Authentication Scheme with Anonymity for Mobile Devices

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Soobok Shin

2012-04-01

Full Text Available With the rapid growth of information technologies, mobile devices have been utilized in a variety of services such as e-commerce. When a remote server provides such e-commerce services to a user, it must verify the legitimacy of the user over an insecure communication channel. Therefore, remote user authentication has been widely deployed to verify the legitimacy of remote user login requests using mobile devices like smart cards. In this paper we propose a smart card-based authentication scheme that provides both user anonymity and mutual authentication between a remote server and a user. The proposed authentication scheme is a simple and efficient system applicable to the limited resource and low computing performance of the smart card. The proposed scheme provides not only resilience to potential attacks in the smart card-based authentication scheme, but also secure authentication functions. A smart card performs a simple one-way hash function, the operations of exclusive-or and concatenation in the authentication phase of the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme also provides user anonymity using a dynamic identity and key agreement, and secure password change.

Anonymity versus privacy in the dictator game: revealing donor decisions to recipients does not substantially impact donor behavior.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeffrey Winking

Full Text Available Anonymity is often offered in economic experiments in order to eliminate observer effects and induce behavior that would be exhibited under private circumstances. However, anonymity differs from privacy in that interactants are only unaware of each others' identities, while having full knowledge of each others' actions. Such situations are rare outside the laboratory and anonymity might not meet the requirements of some participants to psychologically engage as if their actions were private. In order to explore the impact of a lack of privacy on prosocial behaviors, I expand on a study reported in Dana et al. (2006 in which recipients were left unaware of the Dictator Game and given donations as "bonuses" to their show-up fees for other tasks. In the current study, I explore whether differences between a private Dictator Game (sensu Dana et al. (2006 and a standard anonymous one are due to a desire by dictators to avoid shame or to pursue prestige. Participants of a Dictator Game were randomly assigned to one of four categories-one in which the recipient knew of (1 any donation by an anonymous donor (including zero donations, (2 nothing at all, (3 only zero donations, and (4 and only non-zero donations. The results suggest that a lack of privacy increases the shame that selfish-acting participants experience, but that removing such a cost has only minimal effects on actual behavior.

Longitudinal social networks impacts on weight and weight-related behaviors assessed using mobile-based ecological momentary assessments: Study Protocols for the SPARC study

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Meg Bruening

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The transition from the home to college is a phase in which emerging adults shift toward more unhealthy eating and physical activity patterns, higher body mass indices, thus increasing risk of overweight/obesity. Currently, little is understood about how changing friendship networks shape weight gain behaviors. This paper describes the recruitment, data collection, and data analytic protocols for the SPARC (Social impact of Physical Activity and nutRition in College study, a longitudinal examination of the mechanisms by which friends and friendship networks influence nutrition and physical activity behaviors and weight gain in the transition to college life. Methods The SPARC study aims to follow 1450 university freshmen from a large university over an academic year, collecting data on multiple aspects of friends and friendship networks. Integrating multiple types of data related to student lives, ecological momentary assessments (EMAs are administered via a cell phone application, devilSPARC. EMAs collected in four 1-week periods (a total of 4 EMA waves are integrated with linked data from web-based surveys and anthropometric measurements conducted at four times points (for a total of eight data collection periods including EMAs, separated by ~1 month. University databases will provide student card data, allowing integration of both time-dated data on food purchasing, use of physical activity venues, and geographical information system (GIS locations of these activities relative to other students in their social networks. Discussion Findings are intended to guide the development of more effective interventions to enhance behaviors among college students that protect against weight gain during college.

Longitudinal social networks impacts on weight and weight-related behaviors assessed using mobile-based ecological momentary assessments: Study Protocols for the SPARC study.

Science.gov (United States)

Bruening, Meg; Ohri-Vachaspati, Punam; Brewis, Alexandra; Laska, Melissa; Todd, Michael; Hruschka, Daniel; Schaefer, David R; Whisner, Corrie M; Dunton, Genevieve

2016-08-30

The transition from the home to college is a phase in which emerging adults shift toward more unhealthy eating and physical activity patterns, higher body mass indices, thus increasing risk of overweight/obesity. Currently, little is understood about how changing friendship networks shape weight gain behaviors. This paper describes the recruitment, data collection, and data analytic protocols for the SPARC (Social impact of Physical Activity and nutRition in College) study, a longitudinal examination of the mechanisms by which friends and friendship networks influence nutrition and physical activity behaviors and weight gain in the transition to college life. The SPARC study aims to follow 1450 university freshmen from a large university over an academic year, collecting data on multiple aspects of friends and friendship networks. Integrating multiple types of data related to student lives, ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) are administered via a cell phone application, devilSPARC. EMAs collected in four 1-week periods (a total of 4 EMA waves) are integrated with linked data from web-based surveys and anthropometric measurements conducted at four times points (for a total of eight data collection periods including EMAs, separated by ~1 month). University databases will provide student card data, allowing integration of both time-dated data on food purchasing, use of physical activity venues, and geographical information system (GIS) locations of these activities relative to other students in their social networks. Findings are intended to guide the development of more effective interventions to enhance behaviors among college students that protect against weight gain during college.

Predicting weight status stability and change from fifth grade to eighth grade: the significant role of adolescents' social-emotional well-being.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Yiting; Gable, Sara

2013-04-01

The primary objective of this study was to predict weight status stability and change across the transition to adolescence using parent reports of child and household routines and teacher and child self-reports of social-emotional development. Data were from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally representative sample of children who entered kindergarten during 1998-1999 and were followed through eighth grade. At fifth grade, parents reported on child and household routines and the study child and his/her primary classroom teacher reported on the child's social-emotional functioning. At fifth and eighth grade, children were directly weighed and measured at school. Nine mutually-exclusive weight trajectory groups were created to capture stability or change in weight status from fifth to eighth grade: (1) stable obese (ObeSta); (2) obese to overweight (ObePos1); (3) obese to healthy (ObePos2); (4) stable overweight (OverSta); (5) overweight to healthy (OverPos); (6) overweight to obese (OverNeg); (7) stable healthy (HelSta); (8) healthy to overweight (HelNeg1); and (9) healthy to obese (HelNeg2). Except for breakfast consumption at home, school-provided lunches, nighttime sleep duration, household and child routines did not predict stability or change in weight status. Instead, weight status trajectory across the transition to adolescence was significantly predicted by measures of social-emotional functioning at fifth grade. Assessing children's social-emotional well-being in addition to their lifestyle routines during the transition to adolescence is a noteworthy direction for adolescent obesity prevention and intervention. Copyright © 2013 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Crawling Facebook for Social Network Analysis Purposes

OpenAIRE

Catanese, Salvatore A.; De Meo, Pasquale; Ferrara, Emilio; Fiumara, Giacomo; Provetti, Alessandro

2011-01-01

We describe our work in the collection and analysis of massive data describing the connections between participants to online social networks. Alternative approaches to social network data collection are defined and evaluated in practice, against the popular Facebook Web site. Thanks to our ad-hoc, privacy-compliant crawlers, two large samples, comprising millions of connections, have been collected; the data is anonymous and organized as an undirected graph. We describe a set of tools that w...

Anonymity as an Instructional Scaffold in Peer Assessment: Its Effects on Peer Feedback Quality and Evolution in Students' Perceptions about Peer Assessment Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Rotsaert, Tijs; Panadero, Ernesto; Schellens, Tammy

2018-01-01

Although previous research has indicated that providing anonymity is an effective way to create a safe peer assessment setting, continuously ensuring anonymity prevents students from experiencing genuine two-way interactive feedback dialogues. The present study investigated how installing a transitional approach from an anonymous to a…

The experience of weight management in normal weight adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Hernandez, Cheri Ann; Hernandez, David A; Wellington, Christine M; Kidd, Art

2016-11-01

No prior research has been done with normal weight persons specific to their experience of weight management. The purpose of this research was to discover the experience of weight management in normal weight individuals. Glaserian grounded theory was used. Qualitative data (focus group) and quantitative data (food diary, study questionnaire, and anthropometric measures) were collected. Weight management was an ongoing process of trying to focus on living (family, work, and social), while maintaining their normal weight targets through five consciously and unconsciously used strategies. Despite maintaining normal weights, the nutritional composition of foods eaten was grossly inadequate. These five strategies can be used to develop new weight management strategies that could be integrated into existing weight management programs, or could be developed into novel weight management interventions. Surprisingly, normal weight individuals require dietary assessment and nutrition education to prevent future negative health consequences. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ZebraLancer: Private and Anonymous Crowdsourcing System atop Open Blockchain

OpenAIRE

Lu, Yuan; Tang, Qiang; Wang, Guiling

2018-01-01

We design and implement the first private and anonymous decentralized crowdsourcing system ZebraLancer. It realizes the fair exchange (i.e. security against malicious workers and dishonest requesters) without using any third-party arbiter. More importantly, it overcomes two fundamental challenges of decentralization, i.e. data leakage and identity breach. First, our outsource-then-prove methodology resolves the critical tension between blockchain transparency and data confidentiality without ...

Secondary Analysis of Audio Data. Technical Procedures for Virtual Anonymization and Pseudonymization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Henning Pätzold

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Qualitative material presented as audio data requires a greater degree of protecting of anonymity than for example textual data. Apart from the verbal content, it carries paraverbal aspects including voice characteristics, thus making it easier to identify the speaker. This complicates secondary analysis or reanalysis conducted by researchers who were not involved in the data collection. Difficulties increase if the chances are high that the researcher and the interviewee come in contact for example through a meeting. This paper describes the technical procedures that are used to modify the sound of the audio source in a way that it reduces the possibility of recognition (i.e. similar to that of a carefully written transcript. A discussion of the technical possibilities of this procedure along with an exploration of the boundaries of anonymization is presented. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0501249

The Pattern of Drug Abuse in Anonymous Adidcts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seyede Maryam Vahdat-Shariat-Panahi

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Objective: Having the information about pattern of substance abuse in the community and its epidemiological features is one of the most important protocols for evaluation, follow–up and control of the use of these substances. The aim of this study was to evaluate the patterns of substances abuse among narcotic anonymous (N. A. addicted patients. Materials & Methods: In this descriptive and analytical study, three hundred patients from narcotic abusers anonymous (N. A. association who were referred to a treatment center in Tehran were participated consecutively. The information about demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, type of drug and the patterns of substance abuse of all cases were collected by researcher made questionnaire. Data were analyzed by Chi–Square test. Results: 80% of the patients were male. Almost 65. 2% of cases aged less than 40 years. More than two–third of cases had free jobs and 21. 2% of them were unemployed. Also, 32% of patients had college degrees. The most common types of abused substance were opium (88%, cigarette (76.7%, and alcohol (63% and 34% of them used substances intravenously. The use of alcohol (P=0.033, cannabis (P<0.001, cocaine (P=0.009 and ecstasy (P<0.001 was more prevalent significantly in the cases less than 40 years old than the elderly. Conclusion: It seems that the trend of substance abuse has been changed to younger population. The pattern of drug abuse in young adults is more toward psychosis drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy.

Social media or shopping websites? The influence of eWOM on consumers' online purchase intentions

OpenAIRE

Erkan, I.; Evans, C.

2016-01-01

This study empirically tests and compares the influence of friends' recommendations on social media and anonymous reviews on shopping websites in the context of online purchase intention. For this purpose, we analyse the impacts of these two platforms based on the components of information adoption model (IAM) which are borrowed as information quality, information credibility, information usefulness and information adoption. We conduct a survey and find anonymous reviews as more influential o...

Group membership and social identity in addiction recovery.

Science.gov (United States)

Buckingham, Sarah A; Frings, Daniel; Albery, Ian P

2013-12-01

Despite a growing interest in how group membership can positively impact health, little research has addressed directly the role social identity processes can have on recovery from addiction. Drawing on social identity theory and self-categorization theory, the present study investigated how recovery group membership can introduce a new social identity associated with recovery, compared to the social identity associated with addiction. We hypothesized that two processes--evaluative differentiation and identity preference--would be linked with higher self-efficacy and positive health outcomes (i.e., reduced relapse, lower levels of appetitive behavior, and elevated feelings of social connectedness [Study 2]). Study 1 recruited members (N = 61) from United Kingdom based mutual aid groups of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Study 2 recruited ex-smokers (N = 81) from online sources. In Study 1, evaluative differentiation was significantly related to lowered relapse and reduced appetitive behavior. Identity preference was related to higher levels of self-efficacy, which was related to months drug-free and reduced levels of appetitive behaviors. In Study 2, evaluative differentiation was related to identity preference. Identity preference was also related to higher self-efficacy, which in turn was related to lower relapse. Although exploratory, these results suggest that developing a social identity as a "recovering addict" or an "ex-smoker" and subsequently highlighting the difference between such identities may be a useful strategy for reducing relapse among people with problems associated with addictive behaviors. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

An exploration of fetish social networks and communities

OpenAIRE

Fay, Damien; Haddadi, Hamed; Seto, Michael C.; Wang, Han; Kling, Christoph Carl

2015-01-01

Online Social Networks (OSNs) provide a venue for virtual interactions and relationships between individuals. In some communities, OSNs also facilitate arranging online meetings and relationships. FetLife, the worlds largest anonymous social network for the BDSM, fetish and kink communities, provides a unique example of an OSN that serves as an interaction space, community organizing tool, and sexual market. In this paper, we present a first look at the characteristics of European members of ...

Patient seeking behaviors and online personas: social media's role in cosmetic dermatology.

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, Nicholas A; Todd, Quintin; Saedi, Nazanin

2015-02-01

Social media sites, composed of providers, patients, and their social circles, facilitate health and healthcare delivery. To examine patients' perspective on social media as an information source, communication tool, and referral service through an anonymous survey. In addition, influences on patient Internet personas, an actively constructed online identity, around the time of cosmetic procedures are examined. Patients completed an anonymous institutional review board-approved survey during their initial cosmetic visit. Patients are highly active on social media using it as a multipurpose tool for physician referral services, support groups, and disease education. Patients gathered dermatology information from multiple sources, including friends, family, social media pages, and other online sources, often sharing their own experiences through social media platforms. Patients indicated a desire for provider educational materials on interactive media pages. Most preferred material written by a physician, but some indicated a preference for both physician and lay material. Online images highlighting dissatisfying skin features were influential to select patients, prompting manipulation of online personas and evaluation for aesthetic procedures. Although the study examines cosmetic patient perspectives, data highlight valuable trends for all dermatologists. Social media can improve patient education, collaboration, recruitment, and online professional image, leading to healthier patient-centered care.

Your choice MATor(s) : large-scale quantitative anonymity assessment of Tor path selection algorithms against structural attacks

OpenAIRE

Backes, Michael; Meiser, Sebastian; Slowik, Marcin

2015-01-01

In this paper, we present a rigorous methodology for quantifying the anonymity provided by Tor against a variety of structural attacks, i.e., adversaries that compromise Tor nodes and thereby perform eavesdropping attacks to deanonymize Tor users. First, we provide an algorithmic approach for computing the anonymity impact of such structural attacks against Tor. The algorithm is parametric in the considered path selection algorithm and is, hence, capable of reasoning about variants of Tor and...

A Framework For Enhancing Privacy In Location Based Services Using K-Anonymity Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jane Mugi

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract This paper presents a framework for enhancing privacy in Location Based Services using K-anonymity model. Users of location based services have to reveal their location information in order to use these services however this has threatened the user privacy. K-anonymity approach has been studied extensively in various forms. However it is only effective when the user location is fixed. When a user moves and continuously sends their location information the location service provider can approximate user trajectory which poses a threat to the trajectory privacy of the user. This framework will ensure that user privacy is enhanced for both snapshot and continuous queries. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed framework was evaluated the results indicate that the proposed framework has high success rate and good run time performance.

Medical Relabeling in Gamblers Anonymous: The Construction of an Ideal Member.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, David N.; Saunders, Danny

1990-01-01

Observed 2 Gamblers Anonymous (GA) groups in South Wales over a 12-month period. Determined 2 broad consequences arose from encountering fellow sufferers: acceptance of diagnosis and commitment to recovery and to will of GA, or rejection of the diagnosis with the knowledge that they are returning to the outside world with a reconstituted…

Quem controla a política de ninguém? Anonymous Brasil e o ativismo hacker nas redes de comunicação (Who control the politics of no one? Anonymous Brazil and hacktivism in communication networks Doi: 10.5212/Emancipacao.v.15i2.0008

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bárbara Maria Farias Mota

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Resumo: Esse artigo analisa a atuação política dos hackers a partir de um estudo de caso da rede Anonymous Brasil, uma das vertentes do hacktivismo no contexto brasileiro. Para tanto, utiliza as postagens de um dos diferentes perfis Anonymous no Twitter, no período da Operação Hacking Cup (#OpHackingCup, que consistiu em uma série de protestos virtuais contra a Copa do Mundo de 2014. Metodologicamente, o desenho de pesquisa adota uma abordagem multimétodo, unindo análise de conteúdo e estatística descritiva. Os resultados evidenciam que por meio da utilização de ferramentas digitais transgressivas e do anonimato, esses atores não estatais evidenciam táticas estratégicas de ação diante do controle/vigilância presentes na sociedade contemporânea. Palavras-chave: Anonymous Brasil. Ativismo hacker. Redes informacionais. Abstract: This article analyses the political actuation of hackers from a study case of the Anonymous Brazil network, one of the faces of hacktivism in the Brazilian context. For such, this paper utilises tweets from one Anonymous profile in Twitter, during the period of the Operation Hacking Cup (#OpHackingCup, which entailed several digital protests against the 2014 World Cup. Methodologically, this paper adopts a research design based on a multi-method approach, uniting content analysis and descriptive statistics. The results show that, by the means of transgressive digital tools and anonymity, those actors spotlight strategical tactics as a countermeasure to the control/surveillance that is present in the contemporary society. Keywords: Anonymous Brazil. Hacktivism. Informational networks.

Mental health, quality of life and social relations in young adults born with low birth weight

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Lund Line K

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Being born with low birth weight may have an impact on different aspects of mental health, psychosocial functioning and well-being; however results from studies in young adulthood have so far yielded mixed findings. The aim of this study was to assess the long-term impact in young adulthood on self-reported mental health, health-related quality of life, self-esteem and social relations by investigating differences between two low birth weight groups and a control group. Methods In a follow-up at 20 years of age, 43 preterm VLBW (birth weight ≤ 1500 g, 55 term SGA (birth weight  Results The VLBW and SGA groups reported significantly more mental health problems than controls. The VLBW group predominantly had internalizing problems, and the non-significant association with ASR Total score was reduced by the Intelligence Quotient (IQ. The SGA group had increased scores on both internalizing and externalizing problems, and the association with ASR Total score remained significant after adjusting for IQ in this group. Both low birth weight groups reported less interaction with friends and lower quality of life related to mental health domains than controls. Self-esteem scores were lower than in the control group for athletic competence (VLBW and social acceptance (SGA. Conclusion Our findings suggest that self-reported mental health and well-being in young adulthood may be adversely affected by low birth weight, irrespective of whether this is the result of premature birth or being born SGA at term.

1-RAAP: An Efficient 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Jingwei; Zhang, Lihuan; Sun, Rong

2016-05-19

Thanks to the rapid technological convergence of wireless communications, medical sensors and cloud computing, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have emerged as a novel networking paradigm enabling ubiquitous Internet services, allowing people to receive medical care, monitor health status in real-time, analyze sports data and even enjoy online entertainment remotely. However, because of the mobility and openness of wireless communications, WBANs are inevitably exposed to a large set of potential attacks, significantly undermining their utility and impeding their widespread deployment. To prevent attackers from threatening legitimate WBAN users or abusing WBAN services, an efficient and secure authentication protocol termed 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol (1-RAAP) is proposed in this paper. In particular, 1-RAAP preserves anonymity, mutual authentication, non-repudiation and some other desirable security properties, while only requiring users to perform several low cost computational operations. More importantly, 1-RAAP is provably secure thanks to its design basis, which is resistant to the anonymous in the random oracle model. To validate the computational efficiency of 1-RAAP, a set of comprehensive comparative studies between 1-RAAP and other authentication protocols is conducted, and the results clearly show that 1-RAAP achieves the best performance in terms of computational overhead.

1-RAAP: An Efficient 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jingwei Liu

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Thanks to the rapid technological convergence of wireless communications, medical sensors and cloud computing, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs have emerged as a novel networking paradigm enabling ubiquitous Internet services, allowing people to receive medical care, monitor health status in real-time, analyze sports data and even enjoy online entertainment remotely. However, because of the mobility and openness of wireless communications, WBANs are inevitably exposed to a large set of potential attacks, significantly undermining their utility and impeding their widespread deployment. To prevent attackers from threatening legitimate WBAN users or abusing WBAN services, an efficient and secure authentication protocol termed 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol (1-RAAP is proposed in this paper. In particular, 1-RAAP preserves anonymity, mutual authentication, non-repudiation and some other desirable security properties, while only requiring users to perform several low cost computational operations. More importantly, 1-RAAP is provably secure thanks to its design basis, which is resistant to the anonymous in the random oracle model. To validate the computational efficiency of 1-RAAP, a set of comprehensive comparative studies between 1-RAAP and other authentication protocols is conducted, and the results clearly show that 1-RAAP achieves the best performance in terms of computational overhead.

Evolving use of social media among Chinese urologists: Opportunity or challenge?

OpenAIRE

Long, Xingbo; Qi, Lin; Ou, Zhenyu; Zu, Xiongbing; Cao, Zhenzhen; Zeng, Xiting; Li, Yuan; Chen, Minfeng; Wang, Zhao; Wang, Long

2017-01-01

Background Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate, and it has been widely incorporated into medical practice. However, limited data are available regarding the use of social media by Chinese urologists in their practice. Methods From 2014 to 2016, during the China Urological Association?s (CUA) Annual National Minimally Invasive Urology Academic Conference, an anonymous survey on social media usage was distributed to participant urologists. Results The results of the surve...

Weight-Loss Expectancies, Relative Weight, and Symptoms of Bulimia in Young Women.

Science.gov (United States)

Thombs, Dennis L.; And Others

1996-01-01

A canonical correlation analysis of various weight concerns in a sample of college women revealed that strong expectations of weight loss benefits and a high relative body weight were positively correlated with the four major symptoms of bulimia. Expectations of increased self-worth and social confidence were linked to eating problems. (RJM)

Parents, television and children’s weight status: on lasting effects of parental television socialization in the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Notten, N.; Kraaykamp, G.; Tolsma, J.

2013-01-01

This study scrutinizes the long-term effects of parental television socialization activities on their children's weight status measured through body mass index (BMI-score). We address the question how parental television habits and parental television mediation in childhood relate to a person's

Is the introduction of anonymous delivery associated with a reduction of high neonaticide rates in Austria? A retrospective study.

Science.gov (United States)

Klier, C M; Grylli, C; Amon, S; Fiala, C; Weizmann-Henelius, G; Pruitt, S L; Putkonen, H

2013-03-01

To assess rates of neonaticide after the implementation of a preventative 'anonymous delivery' law in mid-2001 in Austria. Women are allowed to access antenatal care and give birth in a hospital anonymously, without showing any ID and free of charge. Retrospective study. A complete census of police-reported neonaticides was obtained from the police statistics of Austria, Sweden and Finland. All neonaticides reported to the police, 1991-2009. Neonaticide rates before (1991-2001) and after (2002-2009) the introduction of anonymous delivery legislation per 100 000 births. The Mann-Whitney U-test for two independent samples was used to compare neonaticide rates in the period before the new law was introduced with the rates observed after the implementation of the new law for each country. On average the rate of police-reported neonaticides was 7.2 per 100 000 births (SD 3.5, median 7.1) in Austria prior to the new law being passed, and 3.1 per 100 000 births (SD 2.1, median 2.6) after the law was passed. A significant decrease in neonaticide was observed in Austria after the implementation of anonymous delivery (Mann-Whitney U-test P = 0.017). Whereas the Finnish and Swedish rates were lower than the Austrian rates before and after the implementation of the Austrian law, they remained unchanged over the study period. Our data demonstrate a significant decrease in the number of police-reported neonaticides in Austria after the implementation of anonymous delivery. Even though underlying factors associated with neonaticide are complex, the findings could indicate an effect of anonymous delivery in the prevention of this crime. © 2012 The Authors BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology © 2012 RCOG.

Unexplained Weight Loss

Science.gov (United States)

... weight is affected by your calorie intake, activity level, overall health, age, nutrient absorption, and economic and social factors. If you're losing weight without trying and you're concerned about it, consult your doctor — as a rule of thumb, losing more than 5 ...

Social cues and ideology.

Science.gov (United States)

Mansell, Jordan

2018-01-01

Research shows that individuals with liberal and conservative ideological orientations display different value positions concerning the acceptance of social change and inequality. Research also links the expression of different values to a number of biological factors, including heredity. In light of these biological influences, I investigate whether differences in social values associated with liberal and conservative ideologies reflect alternative strategies to maximize returns from social interactions. Using an American sample of Democrats and Republicans, I test whether information about shared and unshared social values in the form of implicit social attitudes have a disproportionate effect on the willingness of Democrats and Republicans to trust an anonymous social partner. I find evidence that knowledge of shared values significantly increases levels of trust among Democrats but not Republicans. I further find that knowledge of unshared values significantly decreases trust among Republicans but not Democrats. These findings are consistent with studies indicating that differences in ideological orientation are linked to differences in cognition and decision-making.

Preference for anonymity in sperm donation for artificial insemination: an experience from low-resource settings in Nigeria

Science.gov (United States)

Ezugwu, Euzebus Chinonye; Eleje, George U; Iyoke, Chukwuemeka A; Mba, Sunday G; Nnaji, Henry C; Enechukwu, Chukwunonso I; Nkwo, Peter O

2018-01-01

Objective Anonymous sperm donation is a common practice in Nigeria with its associated legal and ethical challenges. This study aimed to investigate infertile couples’ opinions about issues of sperm donor anonymity and to determine factors that might influence their preferences. Methods A cross-sectional, multicentered, questionnaire-based study was conducted among infertile couples attending infertility clinics in three tertiary hospitals in the south-eastern region of Nigeria over a period of 6 months. Results A total of 450 infertile couples were recruited consecutively from the three study centers. However, 450 females and 352 males (total=802) participated in the study. The level of awareness of artificial insemination using donor sperm for the management of male infertility among the respondents was 69.2%, while its acceptability rate was 62.7%. The majority of the respondents indicated their preference for secrecy and anonymity in sperm donation. Approximately 84% of the respondents indicated that the mode of conception should never be disclosed to the donor-conceived child, and ~92% of them indicated that the identity of the sperm donor should never be revealed to the donor-conceived child. Fear of adverse effect of such disclosure on the child and the possible of rejection of the father in order to seek for the donor were the major reasons for their preference for anonymity. Conclusion Although it has been argued that every child has a right to know their genetic parents, the reasons proffered by the respondents for their preference for anonymity cannot be totally ignored. Establishing a regulatory body and enacting laws that will address both the ethical and legal issues associated with gamete donation in the developing world will go a long way in promoting openness and honest communication with donor-conceived children. PMID:29670338

CRYPTOGRAPHIC SECURE CLOUD STORAGE MODEL WITH ANONYMOUS AUTHENTICATION AND AUTOMATIC FILE RECOVERY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sowmiya Murthy

2014-10-01

Full Text Available We propose a secure cloud storage model that addresses security and storage issues for cloud computing environments. Security is achieved by anonymous authentication which ensures that cloud users remain anonymous while getting duly authenticated. For achieving this goal, we propose a digital signature based authentication scheme with a decentralized architecture for distributed key management with multiple Key Distribution Centers. Homomorphic encryption scheme using Paillier public key cryptosystem is used for encrypting the data that is stored in the cloud. We incorporate a query driven approach for validating the access policies defined by an individual user for his/her data i.e. the access is granted to a requester only if his credentials matches with the hidden access policy. Further, since data is vulnerable to losses or damages due to the vagaries of the network, we propose an automatic retrieval mechanism where lost data is recovered by data replication and file replacement with string matching algorithm. We describe a prototype implementation of our proposed model.

Association between online social networking and depression in high school students: behavioral physiology viewpoint.

Science.gov (United States)

Pantic, Igor; Damjanovic, Aleksandar; Todorovic, Jovana; Topalovic, Dubravka; Bojovic-Jovic, Dragana; Ristic, Sinisa; Pantic, Senka

2012-03-01

Frequent use of Facebook and other social networks is thought to be associated with certain behavioral changes, and some authors have expressed concerns about its possible detrimental effect on mental health. In this work, we investigated the relationship between social networking and depression indicators in adolescent population. Total of 160 high school students were interviewed using an anonymous, structured questionnaire and Back Depression Inventory - second edition (BDI-II-II). Apart from BDI-II-II, students were asked to provide the data for height and weight, gender, average daily time spent on social networking sites, average time spent watching TV, and sleep duration in a 24-hour period. Average BDI-II-II score was 8.19 (SD=5.86). Average daily time spent on social networking was 1.86 h (SD=2.08 h), and average time spent watching TV was 2.44 h (SD=1.74 h). Average body mass index of participants was 21.84 (SD=3.55) and average sleep duration was 7.37 (SD=1.82). BDI-II-II score indicated minimal depression in 104 students, mild depression in 46 students, and moderate depression in 10 students. Statistically significant positive correlation (psocial networking. Our results indicate that online social networking is related to depression. Additional research is required to determine the possible causal nature of this relationship.

Quantum election scheme based on anonymous quantum key distribution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou Rui-Rui; Yang Li

2012-01-01

An unconditionally secure authority-certified anonymous quantum key distribution scheme using conjugate coding is presented, based on which we construct a quantum election scheme without the help of an entanglement state. We show that this election scheme ensures the completeness, soundness, privacy, eligibility, unreusability, fairness, and verifiability of a large-scale election in which the administrator and counter are semi-honest. This election scheme can work even if there exist loss and errors in quantum channels. In addition, any irregularity in this scheme is sensible. (general)

Disordered Weight Management Behaviors, Nonprescription Steroid Use, and Weight Perception in Transgender Youth.

Science.gov (United States)

Guss, Carly E; Williams, David N; Reisner, Sari L; Austin, S Bryn; Katz-Wise, Sabra L

2017-01-01

Disordered weight management behaviors are prevalent among youth; recent case reports suggested that these behaviors might also be common in transgender youth. We studied associations of gender identity with disordered weight management behaviors, nonprescription steroid use, and weight perception among transgender and cisgender (nontransgender) high-school students in Massachusetts. Data were analyzed from the 2013 Massachusetts Youth Health Survey, an anonymous survey in a random sample of Massachusetts public high schools. Respondents were divided into three groups: transgender (n = 67), cisgender male (n = 1,117), and cisgender female (n = 1,289). Fisher's exact tests and multivariable logistic regression models were used to examine unhealthy weight management behaviors in the past 30 days: fasting >24 hours, vomiting, diet pill use, and laxative use; nonprescription steroid use; and self-perceived weight status. Analyses controlled for age, race/ethnicity, and body mass index. Compared with cisgender males, transgender adolescents had higher odds of fasting >24 hours (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 2.9, confidence interval [CI] = 1.1-7.8), using diet pills (AOR = 8.9, 95% CI = 2.3-35.2) and taking laxatives (AOR = 7.2, 95% CI = 1.4-38.4). Transgender youth had higher odds of lifetime use of steroids without a prescription than male cisgender respondents (AOR = 26.6, 95% CI = 3.5-200.1). Compared with cisgender females, transgender respondents had higher odds of perceiving themselves as healthy weight/underweight when they were overweight/obese (AOR = 2.4, 95% CI = 1.5-4.1). Transgender youth disproportionately self-reported unsafe weight management behaviors and nonprescription steroid use compared with cisgender youth. Clinicians should be aware of this increased risk among transgender youth. Research is needed to further understand these disparities and to inform future interventions. Copyright © 2016 Society for Adolescent Health and

Forensic linguistics: Applications of forensic linguistics methods to anonymous letters

OpenAIRE

NOVÁKOVÁ, Veronika

2011-01-01

The title of my bachelor work is ?Forensic linguistics: Applications of forensic linguistics methods to anonymous letters?. Forensic linguistics is young and not very known branch of applied linguistics. This bachelor work wants to introduce forensic linguistics and its method. The bachelor work has two parts ? theory and practice. The theoretical part informs about forensic linguistics in general. Its two basic aspects utilized in forensic science and respective methods. The practical part t...

Informed Traders as Liquidity Providers: Anonymity, Liquidity and Price Formation

OpenAIRE

Barbara Rindi

2008-01-01

The tendency to introduce anonymity into financial markets apparently runs counter to the theory supporting transparency. This paper studies the impact of pre-trade transparency on liquidity in a market where risk-averse traders accommodate the liquidity demand of noise traders. When some risk-averse investors become informed, an adverse selection problem ensues for the others, making them reluctant to supply liquidity. Hence the disclosure of traders' identities improves liquidity by mitigat...

The Sniper Attack: Anonymously Deanonymizing and Disabling the Tor Network

Science.gov (United States)

2014-02-01

attack is also similar to those that rely on misbehaving receivers and optimistic ACKs to bypass flow control protocol mechanisms [40]–[42]. In particular...thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions, Damon McCoy for discussions about misbehaving receivers and authenticated signals...ping-o-death. html. [40] S. Savage, N. Cardwell, D. Wetherall, and T. Anderson, “TCP Con- gestion Control with a Misbehaving Receiver,” ACM SIGCOMM CCR

Homophily in an Anonymous Online Community: Sociodemographic Versus Personality Traits.

Science.gov (United States)

Kang, Jeong-Han; Chung, Da Young

2017-06-01

In what traits do people interact with others who are similar to them in completely anonymous online communication? Can those traits contribute to greater exchange of opinion and information across the sociodemographic boundaries that often limit interaction between social strata? To answer this question concerning online homophily, we combined survey data on 7,287 users (aged 18 and above) of a Korean online dating advice platform with their behavioral data from June 2015 to August 2015 and explored whether advice exchange occurred between users with similar sociodemographic and personality traits. On this platform, two types of interactions occurred as follows: (1) responses to a randomly distributed problem submitted by an advice seeker and (2) the seeker's indication of approval of any of the responses given. The study found that (1) a receiver was more likely to respond to problems submitted by seekers of a comparable age and that (2) seekers were more likely to approve of a response if the seeker and receiver had similar educational backgrounds. By contrast, homophily based on personality traits was not observed even though some personality traits significantly affected the likelihood of both response and approval. Our findings suggest that online communication may breed sociodemographic homophily, whether based on age or education, more than expected or intended while not easily fostering alternative forms of homophily, such as personality homophily, which can potentially cut across borders dividing sociodemographic groups.

An 8-Week Web-Based Weight Loss Challenge With Celebrity Endorsement and Enhanced Social Support: Observational Study

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Clare E; Morgan, Philip J; Callister, Robin

2013-01-01

Background Initial engagement and weight loss within Web-based weight loss programs may predict long-term success. The integration of persuasive Web-based features may boost engagement and therefore weight loss. Objective To determine whether an 8-week challenge within a commercial Web-based weight loss program influenced weight loss, website use, and attrition in the short term, when compared to the standard program. Methods De-identified data for participants (mean age 36.7±10.3 years; 86% female) who enrolled in the Biggest Loser Club (BLC) (n=952) and the BLC’s Shannan Ponton Fast Track Challenge (SC) for 8 weeks (n=381) were compared. The BLC program used standard evidence-based website features, with individualized calorie and exercise targets to facilitate a weight loss of 0.5-1 kg per week (–500kcal/day less than estimated energy expenditure). SC used the same website features but in addition promoted greater initial weight loss using a 1200 kcal/day energy intake target and physical activity energy expenditure of 600 kcal/day. SC used persuasive features to facilitate greater user engagement, including offering additional opportunities for social support (eg, webinar meetings with a celebrity personal trainer and social networking) endorsed by a celebrity personal trainer. Self-reported weekly weight records were used to determine weight change after 8 weeks. A primary analysis was undertaken using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with all available weight records for all participants included. Dropout (participants who cancelled their subscription) and nonusage (participants who stopped using the Web-based features) attrition rates at 8 weeks were calculated. The number of participants who accessed each website feature and the total number of days each feature was used were calculated. The difference between attrition rates and website use for the two programs were tested using chi-square and Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests, respectively. Results

An 8-week web-based weight loss challenge with celebrity endorsement and enhanced social support: observational study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hutchesson, Melinda J; Collins, Clare E; Morgan, Philip J; Callister, Robin

2013-07-04

Initial engagement and weight loss within Web-based weight loss programs may predict long-term success. The integration of persuasive Web-based features may boost engagement and therefore weight loss. To determine whether an 8-week challenge within a commercial Web-based weight loss program influenced weight loss, website use, and attrition in the short term, when compared to the standard program. De-identified data for participants (mean age 36.7±10.3 years; 86% female) who enrolled in the Biggest Loser Club (BLC) (n=952) and the BLC's Shannan Ponton Fast Track Challenge (SC) for 8 weeks (n=381) were compared. The BLC program used standard evidence-based website features, with individualized calorie and exercise targets to facilitate a weight loss of 0.5-1 kg per week (-500kcal/day less than estimated energy expenditure). SC used the same website features but in addition promoted greater initial weight loss using a 1200 kcal/day energy intake target and physical activity energy expenditure of 600 kcal/day. SC used persuasive features to facilitate greater user engagement, including offering additional opportunities for social support (eg, webinar meetings with a celebrity personal trainer and social networking) endorsed by a celebrity personal trainer. Self-reported weekly weight records were used to determine weight change after 8 weeks. A primary analysis was undertaken using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with all available weight records for all participants included. Dropout (participants who cancelled their subscription) and nonusage (participants who stopped using the Web-based features) attrition rates at 8 weeks were calculated. The number of participants who accessed each website feature and the total number of days each feature was used were calculated. The difference between attrition rates and website use for the two programs were tested using chi-square and Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests, respectively. Using GLMM, including weight data for all

THINKING ABOUT REFERRALS TO ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS IN RELATIONAL WAYS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christopher K. Bitten

2010-02-01

Full Text Available This article examines Alcoholics Anonymous (AA as a relational therapy, seen through the lens of the relational needs described by Richard Erskine. AA as a resource may be underemployed by therapists who do not realize its potential to heal the relational damage suffered and inflicted by their alcoholic clients. Common misconceptions about AA are addressed, and ways for therapists to facilitate successful referrals of clients to AA are described. The author posits that there is a synergistic benefit in combining integrative psychotherapy with the client’s involvement in AA.

LPPS: A Distributed Cache Pushing Based K-Anonymity Location Privacy Preserving Scheme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ming Chen

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Recent years have witnessed the rapid growth of location-based services (LBSs for mobile social network applications. To enable location-based services, mobile users are required to report their location information to the LBS servers and receive answers of location-based queries. Location privacy leak happens when such servers are compromised, which has been a primary concern for information security. To address this issue, we propose the Location Privacy Preservation Scheme (LPPS based on distributed cache pushing. Unlike existing solutions, LPPS deploys distributed cache proxies to cover users mostly visited locations and proactively push cache content to mobile users, which can reduce the risk of leaking users’ location information. The proposed LPPS includes three major process. First, we propose an algorithm to find the optimal deployment of proxies to cover popular locations. Second, we present cache strategies for location-based queries based on the Markov chain model and propose update and replacement strategies for cache content maintenance. Third, we introduce a privacy protection scheme which is proved to achieve k-anonymity guarantee for location-based services. Extensive experiments illustrate that the proposed LPPS achieves decent service coverage ratio and cache hit ratio with lower communication overhead compared to existing solutions.

Relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and social function of Wisconsin 2- and 3-year-olds born at very low birth weight.

Science.gov (United States)

McManus, Beth Marie; Robert, Stephanie A; Albanese, Aggie; Sadek-Badawi, Mona; Palta, Mari

2011-02-01

To examine whether (1) neighborhood disadvantage is associated with social function in 2- and 3-year-olds born at very low birth weight (<1500 g) and (2) the association between social function and child's health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is moderated by neighborhood disadvantage. Cross-sectional study using the Newborn Lung Project, a cohort of infants born at very low birth weight in 2003 and 2004 in Wisconsin. Wisconsin. This study includes the subgroup of 626 non-Hispanic black or white infants who were followed up at ages 24 to 43 months with parent-reported health and developmental information. An index of neighborhood disadvantage was derived by principal component analysis of 5 census tract variables (percentage of families in poverty, percentage of households with income higher than the state median, percentage of women with bachelor's degree or more, percentage of single mothers, and percentage of mothers of young children unemployed). Children were then classified (based on index tertiles) as living in either disadvantaged, middle advantage, or advantaged neighborhoods. Children's HRQoL was measured using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Social function was measured using the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory. Adjusting for child medical and family socioeconomic attributes, social function was lower (mean difference, -4.60; 95% confidence interval, -8.4 to -0.8) for children living in disadvantaged vs advantaged neighborhoods. We also found that the ill effects of lower HRQoL are particularly bad for children living in a disadvantaged neighborhood. Children born at very low birth weight have disparities in social function at ages 2 and 3 years that are associated with both HRQoL and neighborhood characteristics.

dCache, towards Federated Identities & Anonymized Delegation

Science.gov (United States)

Ashish, A.; Millar, AP; Mkrtchyan, T.; Fuhrmann, P.; Behrmann, G.; Sahakyan, M.; Adeyemi, O. S.; Starek, J.; Litvintsev, D.; Rossi, A.

2017-10-01

For over a decade, dCache has relied on the authentication and authorization infrastructure (AAI) offered by VOMS, Kerberos, Xrootd etc. Although the established infrastructure has worked well and provided sufficient security, the implementation of procedures and the underlying software is often seen as a burden, especially by smaller communities trying to adopt existing HEP software stacks [1]. Moreover, scientists are increasingly dependent on service portals for data access [2]. In this paper, we describe how federated identity management systems can facilitate the transition from traditional AAI infrastructure to novel solutions like OpenID Connect. We investigate the advantages offered by OpenID Connect in regards to ‘delegation of authentication’ and ‘credential delegation for offline access’. Additionally, we demonstrate how macaroons can provide a more fine-granular authorization mechanism that supports anonymized delegation.

Protecting whistle-blowers: Anonymity on the internet

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guinnessy, P.

1997-01-01

Even though strict legislation exists in many countries, it appears that the next few years should be a golden opportunity for groups to successfully monitor and publish the activity of the nuclear states, and human right violations through use of the Internet. The reasons for this are: 1. The Internet is becoming widespread even in repressive regimes; 2. Software is available to either hide messages from others or hide the mailers account; 3. Information from sites in other countries can be easily obtained to be read inside repressive regimes from the Internet. In this regard It is suggested the Pugwash or a similar organization should set up either an anonymous account to receive information or maybe use a more heavily protected cyperpunk remailer. Such an ability would hopefully prompt more people to notify treaty violations

Montreal Accord on Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) use series - Paper 9: anonymization and ethics considerations for capturing and sharing patient reported outcomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Arbuckle, Luk; Moher, Ester; Bartlett, Susan J; Ahmed, Sara; El Emam, Khaled

2017-09-01

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are collected with consent for care; however, using the data for any other purpose requires consent for that additional purpose, or the anonymization of the data. Collecting explicit consent to use this data for secondary purposes, before the patient completes a PRO, can also bias the responses. We consider the ethical and security issues related to the collection of data at the point of care or in the population and the aggregation and integration of PRO data with administrative databases to facilitate decision making and comparative effectiveness research. In this article, we describe risk-based anonymization, taking the context of the data release into account, so that we may consider the degree by which the release is considered anonymized. We also consider the ethical use of anonymized data, the anonymization of free-form text, and the secure linking data sets without sharing any personal information. Many good standards and best practices exist for the sharing of health data and could be used as a baseline in the development of a national PRO initiative. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Preferences over Social Risk

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Harrison, Glenn W.; Lau, Morten; Rutström, E. Elisabet

2013-01-01

that subjects systematically reveal different risk attitudes in a social setting with no prior knowledge about the risk preferences of others compared to when they solely bear the consequences of the decision. However, we also find that subjects are significantly more risk averse when they know the risk......We elicit individual preferences over social risk. We identify the extent to which these preferences are correlated with preferences over individual risk and the well-being of others. We examine these preferences in the context of laboratory experiments over small, anonymous groups, although...... the methodological issues extend to larger groups that form endogenously (e.g., families, committees, communities). Preferences over social risk can be closely approximated by individual risk attitudes when subjects have no information about the risk preferences of other group members. We find no evidence...

Quantifying social influence in an online cultural market.

Science.gov (United States)

Krumme, Coco; Cebrian, Manuel; Pickard, Galen; Pentland, Sandy

2012-01-01

We revisit experimental data from an online cultural market in which 14,000 users interact to download songs, and develop a simple model that can explain seemingly complex outcomes. Our results suggest that individual behavior is characterized by a two-step process--the decision to sample and the decision to download a song. Contrary to conventional wisdom, social influence is material to the first step only. The model also identifies the role of placement in mediating social signals, and suggests that in this market with anonymous feedback cues, social influence serves an informational rather than normative role.

Quantifying social influence in an online cultural market.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Coco Krumme

Full Text Available We revisit experimental data from an online cultural market in which 14,000 users interact to download songs, and develop a simple model that can explain seemingly complex outcomes. Our results suggest that individual behavior is characterized by a two-step process--the decision to sample and the decision to download a song. Contrary to conventional wisdom, social influence is material to the first step only. The model also identifies the role of placement in mediating social signals, and suggests that in this market with anonymous feedback cues, social influence serves an informational rather than normative role.

Location Prediction Based on Transition Probability Matrices Constructing from Sequential Rules for Spatial-Temporal K-Anonymity Dataset

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhao; Zhu, Yunhong; Wu, Chenxue

2016-01-01

Spatial-temporal k-anonymity has become a mainstream approach among techniques for protection of users’ privacy in location-based services (LBS) applications, and has been applied to several variants such as LBS snapshot queries and continuous queries. Analyzing large-scale spatial-temporal anonymity sets may benefit several LBS applications. In this paper, we propose two location prediction methods based on transition probability matrices constructing from sequential rules for spatial-temporal k-anonymity dataset. First, we define single-step sequential rules mined from sequential spatial-temporal k-anonymity datasets generated from continuous LBS queries for multiple users. We then construct transition probability matrices from mined single-step sequential rules, and normalize the transition probabilities in the transition matrices. Next, we regard a mobility model for an LBS requester as a stationary stochastic process and compute the n-step transition probability matrices by raising the normalized transition probability matrices to the power n. Furthermore, we propose two location prediction methods: rough prediction and accurate prediction. The former achieves the probabilities of arriving at target locations along simple paths those include only current locations, target locations and transition steps. By iteratively combining the probabilities for simple paths with n steps and the probabilities for detailed paths with n-1 steps, the latter method calculates transition probabilities for detailed paths with n steps from current locations to target locations. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments, and correctness and flexibility of our proposed algorithm have been verified. PMID:27508502

Cooperative and uniform fish? : social interactions and variability in live body weight in the GIFT strain (Nile tilapia, Oreochromic niloticus) in Malaysia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Khaw, H.L.

2015-01-01

Abstract

Khaw, HL. (2014). Cooperative and uniform fish? Social interactions and variability in live body weight in the GIFT strain (Nile tilapia, Oreochromic niloticus) in Malaysia. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

Social interactions

Unhealthy weight control behaviors mediate the association between weight status and weight-specific health-related quality of life in treatment-seeking youth who are obese.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Crystal S; Gowey, Marissa A; Cohen, Megan J; Silverstein, Janet; Janicke, David M

2017-03-01

Examine whether unhealthy and extreme weight control behaviors (WCBs) mediate the relationship between youth weight status and disease-specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in treatment-seeking youth who are overweight and obese (OV/OB). 82 youth 10-17 years of age who were OV/OB and attending an outpatient obesity-related medical appointment completed measures assessing unhealthy and extreme WCBs and disease-specific HRQOL. Parents completed a demographic questionnaire and medical staff measured youth height and weight. Regression analyses revealed that unhealthy WCBs mediated the associations between youth weight status and emotional and social avoidance disease-specific HRQOL, such that higher body mass index (BMI) predicted unhealthy WCBs, which were ultimately associated with poorer emotional and social HRQOL. Mediation analyses were not significant for total, physical, teasing/marginalization, and positive attributes disease-specific HRQOL. In addition, extreme WCBs did not mediate the association between youth weight status and any subscales of the disease-specific HRQOL measure. Weight status is an important predictor of disease-specific HRQOL in OV/OB youth; however, the association with emotional and social HRQOL is partially accounted for by youth engagement in unhealthy WCBs. Clinicians and researchers should assess WCBs and further research should explore and evaluate appropriate intervention strategies to address unhealthy WCBs in pediatric weight management prevention and treatment efforts.

[Motivation for weight loss among weight loss treatment participants].

Science.gov (United States)

Czeglédi, Edit

2017-12-01

Unrealistic expectations about weight goal and about weight loss-related benefits can hinder the effort for a successful long-term weight control. To explore weight loss-related goals and their background among overweight/obese patients. Study sample consisted of patients who participated in the inpatient weight loss treatment in the Lipidological Department of Szent Imre Hospital (n = 339, 19% men). Mean age: 50.2 years (SD = 13.47 years), mean BMI: 38.6 (SD = 7.58). self-reported anthropometric data, type and number of treated illnesses, Goals and Relative Weights Questionnaire, Motivations for Weight Loss Scale, Body Shape Questionnaire. Participants would feel disappointed with a possible 10% weight loss in a half-year time span. The acceptable weight loss percentage was higher among women, younger participants and among those who had more excess weight. Motivation regarding the increase in social desirability by weight loss is in association with body dissatisfaction, health related motivation is in association with the number of treated illnesses. Our results are contributing to the understanding of motivational factors behind weight reduction efforts, considering these can improve treatment success rates. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(49): 1960-1967.

Cognition, behavior and social competence of preterm low birth weight children at school age

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Rachel Gick Fan

2013-07-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the cognitive and behavioral development of preterm and low birth weight newborns living in a disadvantageous socioeconomic environment at school age. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included children aged 6-7 from a historical birth cohort of preterm (gestational age <37 weeks and low birth weight (<2,500 g infants. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III (WISC-III was administered by a psychologist while the parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist. The results were compared to the test's reference. The perinatal information and follow-up data were collected from the hospital files. The demographic data were collected from the parents. The current performance was compared with the results from the Denver II and Bayley II tests, which were administered during the first years of life. RESULTS: The total intelligence quotient varied from 70 to 140 (mean 98.7±15.8. The borderline intelligence quotient was observed in 9.3% of the children. The Child Behavior Checklist indicated a predominance of social competence problems (27.8%, CI 19.2 to 37.9 compared with behavioral problems (15.5%, CI 8.9 to 24.2. Both the Child Behavior Checklist domains, such as schooling, social and attention problems, and the cognitive scores were significantly associated with maternal education and family income. The results of the Denver and Bayley tests were associated with the cognitive performance (p<0.001 and the Child Behavior Checklist social profile, including aggressive and externalizing behavior (p<0.001. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that even low-risk preterm newborns are at risk for developing disturbances in early school age, such as mild cognitive deficits and behavioral disorders. This risk might increase under unfavorable socioeconomic conditions.

Vulnerability- and Diversity-Aware Anonymization of Personally Identifiable Information for Improving User Privacy and Utility of Publishing Data

Science.gov (United States)

Majeed, Abdul; Ullah, Farman; Lee, Sungchang

2017-01-01

Personally identifiable information (PII) affects individual privacy because PII combinations may yield unique identifications in published data. User PII such as age, race, gender, and zip code contain private information that may assist an adversary in determining the user to whom such information relates. Each item of user PII reveals identity differently, and some types of PII are highly identity vulnerable. More vulnerable types of PII enable unique identification more easily, and their presence in published data increases privacy risks. Existing privacy models treat all types of PII equally from an identity revelation point of view, and they mainly focus on hiding user PII in a crowd of other users. Ignoring the identity vulnerability of each type of PII during anonymization is not an effective method of protecting user privacy in a fine-grained manner. This paper proposes a new anonymization scheme that considers the identity vulnerability of PII to effectively protect user privacy. Data generalization is performed adaptively based on the identity vulnerability of PII as well as diversity to anonymize data. This adaptive generalization effectively enables anonymous data, which protects user identity and private information disclosures while maximizing the utility of data for performing analyses and building classification models. Additionally, the proposed scheme has low computational overheads. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the scheme and verify the aforementioned claims. PMID:28481298

Vulnerability- and Diversity-Aware Anonymization of Personally Identifiable Information for Improving User Privacy and Utility of Publishing Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Majeed

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Personally identifiable information (PII affects individual privacy because PII combinations may yield unique identifications in published data. User PII such as age, race, gender, and zip code contain private information that may assist an adversary in determining the user to whom such information relates. Each item of user PII reveals identity differently, and some types of PII are highly identity vulnerable. More vulnerable types of PII enable unique identification more easily, and their presence in published data increases privacy risks. Existing privacy models treat all types of PII equally from an identity revelation point of view, and they mainly focus on hiding user PII in a crowd of other users. Ignoring the identity vulnerability of each type of PII during anonymization is not an effective method of protecting user privacy in a fine-grained manner. This paper proposes a new anonymization scheme that considers the identity vulnerability of PII to effectively protect user privacy. Data generalization is performed adaptively based on the identity vulnerability of PII as well as diversity to anonymize data. This adaptive generalization effectively enables anonymous data, which protects user identity and private information disclosures while maximizing the utility of data for performing analyses and building classification models. Additionally, the proposed scheme has low computational overheads. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the scheme and verify the aforementioned claims.

Patient Perspectives on Sharing Anonymized Personal Health Data Using a Digital System for Dynamic Consent and Research Feedback: A Qualitative Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Spencer, Karen; Sanders, Caroline; Whitley, Edgar A; Lund, David; Kaye, Jane; Dixon, William Gregory

2016-04-15

Electronic health records are widely acknowledged to provide an important opportunity to anonymize patient-level health care data and collate across populations to support research. Nonetheless, in the wake of public and policy concerns about security and inappropriate use of data, conventional approaches toward data governance may no longer be sufficient to respect and protect individual privacy. One proposed solution to improve transparency and public trust is known as Dynamic Consent, which uses information technology to facilitate a more explicit and accessible opportunity to opt out. In this case, patients can tailor preferences about whom they share their data with and can change their preferences reliably at any time. Furthermore, electronic systems provide opportunities for informing patients about data recipients and the results of research to which their data have contributed. To explore patient perspectives on the use of anonymized health care data for research purposes. To evaluate patient perceptions of a Dynamic Consent model and electronic system to enable and implement ongoing communication and collaboration between patients and researchers. A total of 26 qualitative interviews and three focus groups were conducted that included a video presentation explaining the reuse of anonymized electronic patient records for research. Slides and tablet devices were used to introduce the Dynamic Consent system for discussion. A total of 35 patients with chronic rheumatic disease with varying levels of illness and social deprivation were recruited from a rheumatology outpatient clinic; 5 participants were recruited from a patient and public involvement health research network. Patients were supportive of sharing their anonymized electronic patient record for research, but noted a lack of transparency and awareness around the use of data, making it difficult to secure public trust. While there were general concerns about detrimental consequences of data falling

The socially-weighted encoding of spoken words: A dual-route approach to speech perception

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Meghan eSumner

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Spoken words are highly variable. A single word may never be uttered the same way twice. As listeners, we regularly encounter speakers of different ages, genders, and accents, increasing the amount of variation we face. How listeners understand spoken words as quickly and adeptly as they do despite this variation remains an issue central to linguistic theory. We propose that learned acoustic patterns are mapped simultaneously to linguistic representations and to social representations. In doing so, we illuminate a paradox that results in the literature from, we argue, the focus on representations and the peripheral treatment of word-level phonetic variation. We consider phonetic variation more fully and highlight a growing body of work that is problematic for current theory: Words with different pronunciation variants are recognized equally well in immediate processing tasks, while an atypical, infrequent, but socially-idealized form is remembered better in the long-term. We suggest that the perception of spoken words is socially-weighted, resulting in sparse, but high-resolution clusters of socially-idealized episodes that are robust in immediate processing and are more strongly encoded, predicting memory inequality. Our proposal includes a dual-route approach to speech perception in which listeners map acoustic patterns in speech to linguistic and social representations in tandem. This approach makes novel predictions about the extraction of information from the speech signal, and provides a framework with which we can ask new questions. We propose that language comprehension, broadly, results from the integration of both linguistic and social information.

The socially weighted encoding of spoken words: a dual-route approach to speech perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Sumner, Meghan; Kim, Seung Kyung; King, Ed; McGowan, Kevin B

2013-01-01

Spoken words are highly variable. A single word may never be uttered the same way twice. As listeners, we regularly encounter speakers of different ages, genders, and accents, increasing the amount of variation we face. How listeners understand spoken words as quickly and adeptly as they do despite this variation remains an issue central to linguistic theory. We propose that learned acoustic patterns are mapped simultaneously to linguistic representations and to social representations. In doing so, we illuminate a paradox that results in the literature from, we argue, the focus on representations and the peripheral treatment of word-level phonetic variation. We consider phonetic variation more fully and highlight a growing body of work that is problematic for current theory: words with different pronunciation variants are recognized equally well in immediate processing tasks, while an atypical, infrequent, but socially idealized form is remembered better in the long-term. We suggest that the perception of spoken words is socially weighted, resulting in sparse, but high-resolution clusters of socially idealized episodes that are robust in immediate processing and are more strongly encoded, predicting memory inequality. Our proposal includes a dual-route approach to speech perception in which listeners map acoustic patterns in speech to linguistic and social representations in tandem. This approach makes novel predictions about the extraction of information from the speech signal, and provides a framework with which we can ask new questions. We propose that language comprehension, broadly, results from the integration of both linguistic and social information.

Assessing the Use of Social Media in a Revolutionary Environment

Science.gov (United States)

2013-06-01

F5 Big-IP). Additionally, most social media sites use Apache Web server and MySQL as their database management system. In order to respond to...address from the destination Web server, a tool used for remaining anonymous must also filter out Javascript, Java , Activex, and any other active

A lightweight and secure two factor anonymous authentication protocol for Global Mobility Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2018-01-01

Global Mobility Networks(GLOMONETs) in wireless communication permits the global roaming services that enable a user to leverage the mobile services in any foreign country. Technological growth in wireless communication is also accompanied by new security threats and challenges. A threat-proof authentication protocol in wireless communication may overcome the security flaws by allowing only legitimate users to access a particular service. Recently, Lee et al. found Mun et al. scheme vulnerable to different attacks and proposed an advanced secure scheme to overcome the security flaws. However, this article points out that Lee et al. scheme lacks user anonymity, inefficient user authentication, vulnerable to replay and DoS attacks and Lack of local password verification. Furthermore, this article presents a more robust anonymous authentication scheme to handle the threats and challenges found in Lee et al.’s protocol. The proposed protocol is formally verified with an automated tool(ProVerif). The proposed protocol has superior efficiency in comparison to the existing protocols. PMID:29702675

Business Information Exchange System with Security, Privacy, and Anonymity

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Sead Muftic

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Business Information Exchange is an Internet Secure Portal for secure management, distribution, sharing, and use of business e-mails, documents, and messages. It has three applications supporting three major types of information exchange systems: secure e-mail, secure instant messaging, and secure sharing of business documents. In addition to standard security services for e-mail letters, which are also applied to instant messages and documents, the system provides innovative features of privacy and full anonymity of users and their locations, actions, transactions, and exchanged resources. In this paper we describe design, implementation, and use of the system.

"Un-Googling” publications: The ethics and problems of anonymization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shklovski, Irina; Vertesi, Janet

2013-01-01

Digital tools of research dissemination make scholarly publications accessible to the public at large through simple search engines. As a result, the users that we study, interview, and cite may be at risk of exposure to unwelcome types of scrutiny and scholars must grapple with challenges...... to the ethics of exposure of our research participants. We present one approach to anonymization of research results with search engines in mind, which we call un-Googling, that we have developed to minimize risk to our participants. We discuss the considerations that this approach raises and pose a challenge...

Social/Electronic Media Use of Children and Adolescents Who Attend the Pediatric Weight Management Programs of the COMPASS Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Siegel, Robert; Fals, Angela; Mirza, Nazrat; Datto, George; Stratbucker, William; Ievers-Landis, Carolyn E; Christison, Amy; Wang, Yu; Woolford, Susan J

2015-10-01

Obesity is a major healthcare problem in youth and their social/electronic media (SEM) use has been described as a risk factor. Though much is known about the newer technologies youth use to communicate, little is known about what is used by those in weight management programs. The aim of this study was to determine what types of SEM, including sedentary and active video games, youth in weight management programs use and which they prefer for communicating with healthcare providers. This was a multisite study using a 24-question online SurveyMonkey® questionnaire. Youth, 12-17 years old, attending pediatric weight management programs at seven participating centers in the Childhood Obesity Multi Program Analysis and Study System network were eligible. There were 292 responders with a mean age of 14.2 years. Fifty-four percent were female, 36% Caucasian, 35% African American, and 33% were Hispanic. Ninety-four percent had access to a computer, 71% had Internet access, and 63% had smartphones. Whereas 87% had at least one gaming system at home, 50% reported they never played sedentary video games (71% of females vs. 25% males; p social media (6%). Face-to-face communication with healthcare providers is the preferred method for youth in pediatric weight management programs. They self-reported video game use less than previously described.

Hacktivism 1-2-3: how privacy enhancing technologies change the face of anonymous hacktivism

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bodó, B.

2014-01-01

This short essay explores how the notion of hacktivism changes due to easily accessible, military grade Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). Privacy Enhancing Technologies, technological tools which provide anonymous communications and protect users from online surveillance enable new forms of

Changing spousal roles and their effect on recovery in gamblers anonymous: GamAnon, social support, wives and husbands.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferentzy, Peter; Skinner, Wayne; Antze, Paul

2010-09-01

This paper examines changing spousal roles and their effects upon recovery in Gamblers Anonymous (GA). It is based upon a qualitative study designed to gage uniformity as well as variations in approaches to recovery in GA. Interviews were conducted with 39 GA members (26 men, 13 women; mean age 56.5 years). Though the study was based in the Toronto area, only 13 interviews involved participants from that region. Phone interviews were conducted with GA members from various regions of both Canada and the US. GamAnon, GA's sister fellowship, has been designed for anyone affected seriously by someone's gambling problem. In practice, GamAnon comprises mostly women--spouses of male GA members--who traditionally have taken a keen interest in the ways in which their husbands achieve and maintain abstinence from gambling. Changing spousal roles have led to fewer women joining GamAnon, as many opt instead to part with troubled spouses. As well, more women are attending GA than in the past, typically with husbands who are disinclined to join GamAnon. All of this has drastically altered how GA members pursue recovery. These changes and their implications are discussed.

Bidirectional semantic associations between social power and weight.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Xiaoling; Chen, Jun; Li, Jianan

2018-02-01

Two experiments were conducted to examine bidirectional semantic associations between power and weight using a priming paradigm. Bidirectionality in the relationship between power and weight was demonstrated, utilising tasks that were identical except that the orders in which the stimuli were presented were reversed. In Experiment 1, an empty scale leaning either leftward or rightward was used as a priming stimulus, and a scale that appeared in equilibrium with a pair of power words was used as a target stimulus. In Experiment 2, a scale with a pair of words that appeared in equilibrium was used as a priming stimulus, and an empty scale leaning either leftward or rightward was used as a target stimulus. We identified interaction effects between power and weight in both experiments. Associations between power and weight provide evidence for both conceptual metaphor views and evolutionary theory. The bidirectionality of metaphorical effects is in line with the strong version of metaphoric structuring. Both language and experiential correlations play important roles in the development of the mapping between power and weight. © 2016 International Union of Psychological Science.

A Secure and Anonymous Two-Factor Authentication Protocol in Multiserver Environment

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Chenyu Wang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available With the great development of network technology, the multiserver system gets widely used in providing various of services. And the two-factor authentication protocols in multiserver system attract more and more attention. Recently, there are two new schemes for multiserver environment which claimed to be secure against the known attacks. However, after a scrutinization of these two schemes, we found that (1 their description of the adversary’s abilities is inaccurate; (2 their schemes suffer from many attacks. Thus, firstly, we corrected their description on the adversary capacities to introduce a widely accepted adversary model and then summarized fourteen security requirements of multiserver based on the works of pioneer contributors. Secondly, we revealed that one of the two schemes fails to preserve forward secrecy and user anonymity and cannot resist stolen-verifier attack and off-line dictionary attack and so forth and also demonstrated that another scheme fails to preserve forward secrecy and user anonymity and is not secure to insider attack and off-line dictionary attack, and so forth. Finally, we designed an enhanced scheme to overcome these identified weaknesses, proved its security via BAN logic and heuristic analysis, and then compared it with other relevant schemes. The comparison results showed the superiority of our scheme.

Proof-of-Work as Anonymous Micropayment: Rewarding a Tor Relay

OpenAIRE

Biryukov, Alex; Pustogarov, Ivan

2015-01-01

In this paper we propose a new micropayments scheme which can be used to reward Tor relay operators. Tor clients do not pay Tor relays with electronic cash directly but submit proof of work shares which the relays can resubmit to a crypto-currency mining pool. Relays credit users who submit shares with tickets that can later be used to purchase improved service. Both shares and tickets when sent over Tor circuits are anonymous. The analysis of the crypto-currencies market prices shows that th...

Preference for anonymity in sperm donation for artificial insemination: an experience from low-resource settings in Nigeria

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Ezugwu EC

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Euzebus Chinonye Ezugwu,1,2 George U Eleje,3,4 Chukwuemeka A Iyoke,1,2 Sunday G Mba,5 Henry C Nnaji,2 Chukwunonso I Enechukwu,4 Peter O Nkwo1,2 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Ittuku Ozalla Campus, Enugu State, Nigeria; 2Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu State, Nigeria; 3Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria; 4Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria; 5Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, Enugu State, Nigeria Objective: Anonymous sperm donation is a common practice in Nigeria with its associated legal and ethical challenges. This study aimed to investigate infertile couples’ opinions about issues of sperm donor anonymity and to determine factors that might influence their preferences.Methods: A cross-sectional, multicentered, questionnaire-based study was conducted among infertile couples attending infertility clinics in three tertiary hospitals in the south-eastern region of Nigeria over a period of 6 months.Results: A total of 450 infertile couples were recruited consecutively from the three study centers. However, 450 females and 352 males (total=802 participated in the study. The level of awareness of artificial insemination using donor sperm for the management of male infertility among the respondents was 69.2%, while its acceptability rate was 62.7%. The majority of the respondents indicated their preference for secrecy and anonymity in sperm donation. Approximately 84% of the respondents indicated that the mode of conception should never be disclosed to the donor-conceived child, and ~92% of them indicated that the identity of the sperm donor should never be revealed to the donor

The role of social networking web sites in influencing residency decisions.

Science.gov (United States)

Schweitzer, Justin; Hannan, Alexander; Coren, Joshua

2012-10-01

Social networking Web sites such as Facebook have grown rapidly in popularity. It is unknown how such sites affect the ways in which medical trainees investigate and interact with graduate medical education (GME) programs. To evaluate the use of social networking Web sites as a means for osteopathic medical students, interns, residents, and fellows to interact with GME programs and report the degree to which that interaction impacts a medical trainee's choice of GME program. An anonymous, 10-item electronic survey on social networking Web sites was e-mailed to osteopathic medical student, intern, resident, and fellow members of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians. The weighted least squares test and the Fisher exact test were used for data analysis. A total of 9606 surveys were distributed, and 992 (10%) were completed. Nine hundred twenty-eight (93%) of the respondents used social networking Web sites, with the most popular services being Facebook (891 [90%]; P=.03), the Student Doctor Network (278 [28%]), and LinkedIn (89 [9%]; P=.03). Three hundred fifty-three respondents (36%; P=.52) were connected with a professional organization and 673 (68%; P=.73) used social networking Web sites for job searching related to GME programs or postresidency employment. Within the population of 497 third-, fourth-, and fifth-year osteopathic medical students, 136 (27%) reported gleaning information about programs through social networking Web sites (P=.01). Within the total population, 100 of 992 (10%) reported that this information influenced their decisions (P=.07). Of note, 144 (14%) of the total 992 respondents reported that the programs they applied to did not have any presence on social networking Web sites (P=.05). Our results indicate that social networking Web sites have a present and growing influence on how osteopathic medical students, interns, residents, and fellows learn about and select a GME program.

Mutual support and recovery in the Russian Alcoholics Anonymous online community

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Lyytikäinen Laura

2016-04-01

Full Text Available AIMS – In Russia the paradigm of alcoholism as a disease is still in contrast to the general perception of alcoholics as weak-willed. This article studies alcoholism and recovery in Russia through the case study of the Russian Alcoholics Anonymous online group. It studies how people who are seeking help for their drinking problems in this online community come to incorporate a new self-understanding of being ill with alcoholism.

Weight status as a moderator of the relationship between motivation, emotional social support, and physical activity in underserved adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

St George, Sara M; Wilson, Dawn K; Lawman, Hannah G; Van Horn, M Lee

2013-05-01

This study examined weight status as a moderator of the relationship between motivation (controlled, autonomous, regulatory), emotional social support (parents, peers) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in underserved adolescents (ethnic minority, low-income). Participants from the Active by Choice Today Trial (n = 1,416; 54% girls, 73% African American, 52% overweight/obese) completed baseline measures, including height and weight, psychosocial surveys, and 7-day accelerometry estimates. Weight status was defined by body mass index z-score (zBMI). Weight status moderated the effects of controlled, autonomous, and regulatory motivation on MVPA, such that these variables were more strongly associated with MVPA in adolescents with lower versus higher zBMI scores. A better understanding of why motivation is not related to MVPA in underserved youth with a higher weight status is needed. Future pediatric obesity treatment in underserved youth may need to move beyond motivation into environmental factors associated with long-term behavior change.

Keeping mum about dad: "contracts" to protect gamete donor anonymity.

Science.gov (United States)

Rees, Anne

2012-06-01

This article considers the legal status of so-called contracts for anonymity between fertility clinics and donors of gametes that were made in the period before legislation authorising disclosure. It notes that while clinics frequently cite the existence of these "contracts" to argue against retrospective legislation authorising disclosure of the donor's identity, they may be nothing more than one-sided statements of informed consent. However, the article notes that even if an agreement between a donor and a clinic is not contractual, it does not follow that a person conceived through assisted reproductive technology has any right of access to the identity of the donor. The writer has not been able to locate examples of written promises by the clinics promising anonymity. There are written promises by the donors not to seek the identity of the recipients. These promises do not bind the resulting offspring nor do they appear to be supported by consideration. The article suggests that the basis for any individual donor to restrain a clinic from revealing their identity may be found in promissory estoppel. Nevertheless, there is no real issue in Australia concerning clinics revealing these details absent legislative authority. The issue is whether parliaments will legislate to authorise the disclosure. The article notes that it would be rare for parliaments to legislate to overturn existing legal contracts but suggests that the contract argument may not be as strong as has been thought.

Compatibility of Adlerian Theory and Practice with the Philosophy and Practices of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Science.gov (United States)

Carroll, Jane J.

1999-01-01

Tenets of Adlerian theory and practice are compatible with the philosophy and practices of Alcoholics Anonymous. Counselors can expect treatment approaches based on Adlerian counseling theory to be congruent with 12-step practices of individuals who are in recovery from alcohol dependence. (Author)

The effect of maternal anthropometric characteristics and social factors on gestational age and birth weight in Sudanese newborn infants.

Science.gov (United States)

Elshibly, Eltahir M; Schmalisch, Gerd

2008-07-18

In Africa low birth weight (LBW) (birth weight. In 1000 Sudanese mothers with singleton births, anthropometric measurements (weight, height, mid-arm circumference) and newborn birth weight were taken within 24 hours of delivery. Furthermore, maternal education and socio-economic status were recorded. The effect of these maternal variables on gestational age and birth weight was investigated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and by multivariate logistic regression analysis. Although maternal height was significantly correlated (p = 0.002) with gestational age, we did not find maternal characteristics of value in determining the risk for preterm birth. Birth order was the strongest determinant of birth weight compared to other maternal characteristics. The LBW rate of first born babies of 12.2% was nearly twice that of infants of multiparous mothers. Maternal age and all maternal anthropometric measurements were positively correlated (p birth weight. A maternal height of birth weight, while the number of years of education was positively correlated with birth weight (p = 0.01). The LBW rate decreased from 9.2% for 12 years of education. Birth order and maternal height were found to be the most important maternal parameters which influences birth weight and the risk for LBW. The duration of maternal education and not social class was found to significantly affect the risk for LBW.

A large-scale examination of the effectiveness of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences in higher education assessment.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel P Hinton

Full Text Available The present research aims to more fully explore the issues of performance differences in higher education assessment, particularly in the context of a common measure taken to address them. The rationale for the study is that, while performance differences in written examinations are relatively well researched, few studies have examined the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing these performance differences, particularly in modern student populations. By examining a large archive (N = 30674 of assessment data spanning a twelve-year period, the relationship between assessment marks and factors such as ethnic group, gender and socio-environmental background was investigated. In particular, analysis focused on the impact that the implementation of anonymous marking for assessment of written examinations and coursework has had on the magnitude of mean score differences between demographic groups of students. While group differences were found to be pervasive in higher education assessment, these differences were observed to be relatively small in practical terms. Further, it appears that the introduction of anonymous marking has had a negligible effect in reducing them. The implications of these results are discussed, focusing on two issues, firstly a defence of examinations as a fair and legitimate form of assessment in Higher Education, and, secondly, a call for the re-examination of the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences.

A large-scale examination of the effectiveness of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences in higher education assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Hinton, Daniel P; Higson, Helen

2017-01-01

The present research aims to more fully explore the issues of performance differences in higher education assessment, particularly in the context of a common measure taken to address them. The rationale for the study is that, while performance differences in written examinations are relatively well researched, few studies have examined the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing these performance differences, particularly in modern student populations. By examining a large archive (N = 30674) of assessment data spanning a twelve-year period, the relationship between assessment marks and factors such as ethnic group, gender and socio-environmental background was investigated. In particular, analysis focused on the impact that the implementation of anonymous marking for assessment of written examinations and coursework has had on the magnitude of mean score differences between demographic groups of students. While group differences were found to be pervasive in higher education assessment, these differences were observed to be relatively small in practical terms. Further, it appears that the introduction of anonymous marking has had a negligible effect in reducing them. The implications of these results are discussed, focusing on two issues, firstly a defence of examinations as a fair and legitimate form of assessment in Higher Education, and, secondly, a call for the re-examination of the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences.

METAL DELM - metal avrelianis contribution to the study of mining coins and anonymous quadrantes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vojvoda Mirjana D.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In the course of rescue archaeological investigations at the Viminacium necropolis of Vi{e Grobalja in 1984, one anonymous quadrans of the VIII Apollo group was discovered (cat. 1. It was discovered in trench 63 in the immediate vicinity of a grave with an inhumation (G 343 that, besides two pottery vessels, also yielded as grave offerings one as of Faustina the Elder, minted after her death, in AD 141. Other finds presented here are four specimens of Roman mining coins from the private collection of Petar Fajfri} from [abac (cat. 2-5. All specimens come from the well known site of Duge Njive in the area of the village of Banatsko Polje (Bogati} borough where, by all appearances, are the remains of a vicus or smaller settlement. Five specimens of mining coins from that site have already been published. Both mining coins and anonymous quadrantes represent, in general, rare types of numismatic finds. Nine anonymous quadrantes are known so far from the territory of Serbia (Table 1 and the provenance is known for three specimens from the region of Guberevac-Babe (Kosmaj, housed in the National Museum in Belgrade. All three belong to the Minerva group with an owl facing to the right represented on the reverse. For two more anonymous quadrantes the place of discovery is known: one specimen comes from Singidunum and belongs to the Mercury group and the other that was found at Viminacium and is the subject of this paper is of the Apollo group. There are four more specimens from unknown sites for which it is assumed that they come from the Upper Moesia territory. Two of them are from the Vajfert collection and two from the Kovačević collection in the National Museum in Belgrade, There has, however, been a somewhat greater number (38 of Roman mining coins discovered in Serbia (Table 1. We know the finding locations of 25 of them: from the Kosmaj area (Babe, Guberevac and Stojnik, the Ibar valley (from the vicinity of Trepča and So~anica, Ritopek

Latent Feature Models for Uncovering Human Mobility Patterns from Anonymized User Location Traces with Metadata

KAUST Repository

Alharbi, Basma Mohammed

2017-04-10

In the mobile era, data capturing individuals’ locations have become unprecedentedly available. Data from Location-Based Social Networks is one example of large-scale user-location data. Such data provide a valuable source for understanding patterns governing human mobility, and thus enable a wide range of research. However, mining and utilizing raw user-location data is a challenging task. This is mainly due to the sparsity of data (at the user level), the imbalance of data with power-law users and locations check-ins degree (at the global level), and more importantly the lack of a uniform low-dimensional feature space describing users. Three latent feature models are proposed in this dissertation. Each proposed model takes as an input a collection of user-location check-ins, and outputs a new representation space for users and locations respectively. To avoid invading users privacy, the proposed models are designed to learn from anonymized location data where only IDs - not geophysical positioning or category - of locations are utilized. To enrich the inferred mobility patterns, the proposed models incorporate metadata, often associated with user-location data, into the inference process. In this dissertation, two types of metadata are utilized to enrich the inferred patterns, timestamps and social ties. Time adds context to the inferred patterns, while social ties amplifies incomplete user-location check-ins. The first proposed model incorporates timestamps by learning from collections of users’ locations sharing the same discretized time. The second proposed model also incorporates time into the learning model, yet takes a further step by considering time at different scales (hour of a day, day of a week, month, and so on). This change in modeling time allows for capturing meaningful patterns over different times scales. The last proposed model incorporates social ties into the learning process to compensate for inactive users who contribute a large volume

Use of social networking sites and perception and intentions regarding body weight among adolescents.

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Sampasa-Kanyinga, H; Chaput, J-P; Hamilton, H A

2016-03-01

Social networking sites (SNSs) not only offer users an opportunity to link with others but also allow individuals to compare themselves with other users. However, the link between the use of SNSs and the dissatisfaction with body weight is largely unknown. We investigated the associations between the use of SNSs and the perception of body weight and related behaviours among adolescent men and women. The study sample consisted of 4,468 (48.5% women) 11-19-year-old Canadian students in grades 7 to 12 who participated in the 2013 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey. Overall, 54.6% of students reported using SNSs for 2 h or less per day, 28.0% reported using them for more than 2 h d -1 and 17.4% reported infrequent or no use of SNSs (reference category). After adjustment for covariates, results showed that adolescent women who use SNSs for more than 2 h d -1 had greater odds of dissatisfaction with body weight (odds ratio = 2.02; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.30-3.16). More specifically, they were more likely to perceive themselves as overweight (relative risk ratio [RRR] = 2.20; 95% CI: 1.34-3.60) compared with those who reported infrequent or no use of SNSs. Conversely, men who use SNSs for 2 h or less per day presented a lower risk for perceiving themselves as overweight (RRR = 0.68; 95% CI: 0.47-0.98) but not those who use SNSs for more than 2 h d -1 . Women who use SNSs for more than 2 h d -1 reported a greater likelihood of trying to lose weight (RRR = 2.52; 95% CI: 1.62-3.90). Our results showed that heavy use of SNSs is associated with dissatisfaction with body weight in adolescent women.

Becoming Overweight Without Gaining a Pound: Weight Evaluations and the Social Integration of Mexicans in the United States.

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Altman, Claire E; Van Hook, Jennifer; Gonzalez, Jonathan

2017-01-01

Mexican women gain weight with increasing duration in the United States. In the United States, body dissatisfaction tends to be associated with depression, disordered eating, and incongruent weight evaluations, particularly among white women and women of higher socioeconomic status. However, it remains unclear how overweight and obesity is interpreted by Mexican women. Using comparable data of women ages 20-64 from both Mexico (the 2006 Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutricion; N=17,012) and the United States (the 1999-2009 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys; N=8,487), we compare weight status evaluations among Mexican nationals, Mexican immigrants, U.S.-born Mexicans, U.S.-born non-Hispanic Whites, and U.S.-born non-Hispanic blacks. Logistic regression analyses, which control for demographic and social-economic variables and measured body mass index and adjust for the likelihood of migration for Mexican nationals, indicate that the tendency to self-evaluate as overweight among Mexicans converges with levels among non-Hispanic whites and diverges from blacks over time in the United States. Overall, the results suggest a U.S. integration process in which Mexican-American women's less critical self-evaluations originate in Mexico but fade with time in the United States as they gradually adopt U.S. white norms for thinner body sizes. These results are discussed in light of social comparison and negative health assimilation.

Pinterest or Thinterest?: Social Comparison and Body Image on Social Media

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Jennifer Lewallen

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Social media have become increasingly popular mechanisms for communication. Past research suggests a link between using social media, upward social comparison, and negative affect. This online experiment of US women ( N  = 118 takes a media psychology approach to understanding how fitness images on the social networking website Pinterest contribute to social comparison as well as intentions to engage in extreme weight-loss behaviors. Findings suggest that individuals who follow more fitness boards on Pinterest are more likely to report intentions to engage in extreme weight-loss behaviors. Additionally, endorsement of an ideal female body type was positively related to both social comparison and intentions to engage in extreme weight-loss behaviors. Findings are discussed in light of social comparison theory, and suggestions are made are made for future experimental work.

Patient Perspectives on Sharing Anonymized Personal Health Data Using a Digital System for Dynamic Consent and Research Feedback: A Qualitative Study

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Whitley, Edgar A; Lund, David; Kaye, Jane

2016-01-01

Background Electronic health records are widely acknowledged to provide an important opportunity to anonymize patient-level health care data and collate across populations to support research. Nonetheless, in the wake of public and policy concerns about security and inappropriate use of data, conventional approaches toward data governance may no longer be sufficient to respect and protect individual privacy. One proposed solution to improve transparency and public trust is known as Dynamic Consent, which uses information technology to facilitate a more explicit and accessible opportunity to opt out. In this case, patients can tailor preferences about whom they share their data with and can change their preferences reliably at any time. Furthermore, electronic systems provide opportunities for informing patients about data recipients and the results of research to which their data have contributed. Objective To explore patient perspectives on the use of anonymized health care data for research purposes. To evaluate patient perceptions of a Dynamic Consent model and electronic system to enable and implement ongoing communication and collaboration between patients and researchers. Methods A total of 26 qualitative interviews and three focus groups were conducted that included a video presentation explaining the reuse of anonymized electronic patient records for research. Slides and tablet devices were used to introduce the Dynamic Consent system for discussion. A total of 35 patients with chronic rheumatic disease with varying levels of illness and social deprivation were recruited from a rheumatology outpatient clinic; 5 participants were recruited from a patient and public involvement health research network. Results Patients were supportive of sharing their anonymized electronic patient record for research, but noted a lack of transparency and awareness around the use of data, making it difficult to secure public trust. While there were general concerns about

Social class and body weight among Chinese urban adults: the role of the middle classes in the nutrition transition.

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Bonnefond, Céline; Clément, Matthieu

2014-07-01

While a plethoric empirical literature addresses the relationship between socio-economic status and body weight, little is known about the influence of social class on nutritional outcomes, particularly in developing countries. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the analysis of the social determinants of adult body weight in urban China by taking into account the influence of social class. More specifically, we propose to analyse the position of the Chinese urban middle class in terms of being overweight or obese. The empirical investigations conducted as part of this research are based on a sample of 1320 households and 2841 adults from the China Health and Nutrition Survey for 2009. For the first step, we combine an economic approach and a sociological approach to identify social classes at household level. First, households with an annual per capita income between 10,000 Yuan and the 95th income percentile are considered as members of the middle class. Second, we strengthen the characterization of the middle class using information on education and employment. By applying clustering methods, we identify four groups: the elderly and inactive middle class, the old middle class, the lower middle class and the new middle class. For the second step, we implement an econometric analysis to assess the influence of social class on adult body mass index and on the probability of being overweight or obese. We use multinomial treatment regressions to deal with the endogeneity of the social class variable. Our results show that among the four subgroups of the urban middle class, the new middle class is the only one to be relatively well-protected against obesity. We suggest that this group plays a special role in adopting healthier food consumption habits and seems to be at a more advanced stage of the nutrition transition. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Design and Implement of the Anonymous Communications in the Mobile IP Networks%移动IP中通信匿名技术的设计与实现

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

康凯; 郭伟; 吴诗其

2002-01-01

One of the key problems in the mobile communication is the anonymous communication. The mobile userwants to hide his real identifying information to the visiting domain and the public network which he does not trust,and prevent from being tracked and located. In this paper, we have discoursed the anonymous communications in themobile IP, and presented a novel strategy of the dynamic address allocation and the routing with anonymity. The sug-gested method enables any identifying information can be carried over the anonymous and secure connections, andprovide end-to-end security. The implements of the mobile host and the mobile subnet are also presented.

Leveraging corporate social responsibility to improve consumer safety of dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building.

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Kulkarni, Anvita; Huerto, Ryan; Roberto, Christina A; Austin, S Bryn

2017-03-01

The potential dangers associated with dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building are well documented and increasingly garnering the attention of the media, public, and government leaders. Public health professionals have an opportunity to improve population health in the context of dietary supplement use by translating scientific evidence into action. In this commentary, we discuss the potential to motivate corporate social responsibility (CSR) among manufacturers and retailers of dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building. We examine levers available to public health professionals for generating voluntary corporate self-regulation by reviewing examples from successful CSR initiatives in other domains of public health and offering recommendations highlighting effective advocacy strategies. We encourage public health professionals to use one or multiple advocacy strategies to improve consumer protections for dietary supplements sold for weight loss and muscle building.

The effect of maternal anthropometric characteristics and social factors on gestational age and birth weight in Sudanese newborn infants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Schmalisch Gerd

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In Africa low birth weight (LBW ( Methods In 1000 Sudanese mothers with singleton births, anthropometric measurements (weight, height, mid-arm circumference and newborn birth weight were taken within 24 hours of delivery. Furthermore, maternal education and socio-economic status were recorded. The effect of these maternal variables on gestational age and birth weight was investigated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC curves and by multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results Although maternal height was significantly correlated (p = 0.002 with gestational age, we did not find maternal characteristics of value in determining the risk for preterm birth. Birth order was the strongest determinant of birth weight compared to other maternal characteristics. The LBW rate of first born babies of 12.2% was nearly twice that of infants of multiparous mothers. Maternal age and all maternal anthropometric measurements were positively correlated (p 12 years of education. Conclusion Birth order and maternal height were found to be the most important maternal parameters which influences birth weight and the risk for LBW. The duration of maternal education and not social class was found to significantly affect the risk for LBW.

Anonymous Search Histories Featuring Personalized Advertisement - Balancing Privacy with Economic Interests

OpenAIRE

Thorben Burghardt; Klemens Bohm; Achim Guttmann; Chris Clifton

2011-01-01

Search engines are key to finding information on the web. Search presently is free for users financed by targeted advertisement. Today, the current search terms determine the ad placement. In the near future, search-engine providers will make use of detailed user profiles for better ad placement. This puts user privacy at risk. Anonymizing search histories, which is a solution in principle, gives way to a trade-off between privacy and the usability of the data for ad placement. This paper stu...

Efficacy and causal mechanism of an online social media intervention to increase physical activity: Results of a randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jingwen; Brackbill, Devon; Yang, Sijia; Centola, Damon

2015-01-01

To identify what features of social media - promotional messaging or peer networks - can increase physical activity. A 13-week social media-based exercise program was conducted at a large Northeastern university in Philadelphia, PA. In a randomized controlled trial, 217 graduate students from the University were randomized to three conditions: a control condition with a basic online program for enrolling in weekly exercise classes led by instructors of the University for 13 weeks, a media condition that supplemented the basic program with weekly online promotional media messages that encourage physical activity, and a social condition that replaced the media content with an online network of four to six anonymous peers composed of other participants of the program, in which each participant was able to see their peers' progress in enrolling in classes. The primary outcome was the number of enrollments in exercise classes, and the secondary outcomes were self-reported physical activities. Data were collected in 2014. Participants enrolled in 5.5 classes on average. Compared with enrollment in the control condition (mean = 4.5), promotional messages moderately increased enrollment (mean = 5.7, p = 0.08), while anonymous social networks significantly increased enrollment (mean = 6.3, p = 0.02). By the end of the program, participants in the social condition reported exercising moderately for an additional 1.6 days each week compared with the baseline, which was significantly more than an additional 0.8 days in the control condition. Social influence from anonymous online peers was more successful than promotional messages for improving physical activity. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02267369.

Bystander's willingness to report theft, physical assault, and sexual assault: the impact of gender, anonymity, and relationship with the offender.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicksa, Sarah C

2014-01-01

This research examines bystander willingness to report three different crimes to the police or campus authorities among a college student sample (n = 295). Twelve original vignettes varied anonymity when reporting, bystander's relationship with the offender (friend or stranger), and crime type. A factorial analysis of variance showed that main effects were found for crime type, bystander's gender, and bystander's relationship with the offender; anonymity was not significant. The physical assault was the most likely to be reported (4.47), followed by theft (3.26), and sexual assault (2.36). Women were more likely than men to report each crime type, and bystanders who were good friends of the offender were less likely to report than strangers. No two- or three-way interactions were significant, but a significant four-way interaction indicated that anonymity, relationship with the offender, and bystander's gender predicted willingness to report for the sexual assault scenario.

AN EFFECTIVE MULTI-CLUSTERING ANONYMIZATION APPROACH USING DISCRETE COMPONENT TASK FOR NON-BINARY HIGH DIMENSIONAL DATA SPACES

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L.V. Arun Shalin

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Clustering is a process of grouping elements together, designed in such a way that the elements assigned to similar data points in a cluster are more comparable to each other than the remaining data points in a cluster. During clustering certain difficulties related when dealing with high dimensional data are ubiquitous and abundant. Works concentrated using anonymization method for high dimensional data spaces failed to address the problem related to dimensionality reduction during the inclusion of non-binary databases. In this work we study methods for dimensionality reduction for non-binary database. By analyzing the behavior of dimensionality reduction for non-binary database, results in performance improvement with the help of tag based feature. An effective multi-clustering anonymization approach called Discrete Component Task Specific Multi-Clustering (DCTSM is presented for dimensionality reduction on non-binary database. To start with we present the analysis of attribute in the non-binary database and cluster projection identifies the sparseness degree of dimensions. Additionally with the quantum distribution on multi-cluster dimension, the solution for relevancy of attribute and redundancy on non-binary data spaces is provided resulting in performance improvement on the basis of tag based feature. Multi-clustering tag based feature reduction extracts individual features and are correspondingly replaced by the equivalent feature clusters (i.e. tag clusters. During training, the DCTSM approach uses multi-clusters instead of individual tag features and then during decoding individual features is replaced by corresponding multi-clusters. To measure the effectiveness of the method, experiments are conducted on existing anonymization method for high dimensional data spaces and compared with the DCTSM approach using Statlog German Credit Data Set. Improved tag feature extraction and minimum error rate compared to conventional anonymization

Anonymity, ethics and credibility in the blogosphere and on Twitter: gastronomic criticism in “Alhos, passas & maçãs” and in @carapuceiro

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Renata Maria do Amaral

2012-07-01

Full Text Available This article intends to understand the anonymous restaurant critic currently made on the Internet, based on the cases of the Alhos, passas & maçãs blog and the @carapuceiro Twitter. Before considered as personal diaries or means of communication among friends, today blogs and social networks have no limits – and, when used to criticize restaurants negatively, its impact reaches unpremeditated boundaries, including reactions of chefs and journalists themselves. At the same time that these tools extend the possibilities of subjective comments written by ordinary people, without a degree in journalism, the press loses credibility by choosing to criticize in a courteous way, submitting itself to the invitations sent by press offices and to the “cordial journalism”.

Weight Stigma Goes Viral on the Internet: Systematic Assessment of YouTube Comments Attacking Overweight Men and Women.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeon, Yongwoog Andrew; Hale, Brent; Knackmuhs, Eric; Mackert, Michael

2018-03-20

Anonymous verbal attacks against overweight individuals on social media are common and widespread. These comments often use negative, misogynist, or derogatory words, which stigmatize the targeted individuals with obesity. These verbal attacks may cause depression in overweight individuals, which could subsequently promote unhealthy eating behavior (ie, binge eating) and further weight gain. To develop an intervention policy and strategies that tackle the anonymous, Web-based verbal attacks, a thorough understanding of the comments is necessary. This study aimed to examine how anonymous users verbally attack or defend overweight individuals in terms of 3 themes: (1) topic of verbal attack (ie, what aspects of overweight individuals are verbally attacked), (2) gender of commenters and targeted overweight individuals, and (3) intensity of derogation depending on the targeted gender (ie, the number of swear words used within comments). This study analyzed the content of YouTube comments that discuss overweight individuals or groups from 2 viral videos, titled "Fat Girl Tinder Date" and "Fat Guy Tinder Date." The twin videos provide an avenue through which to analyze discussions of obesity as they organically occurred in a contemporary setting. We randomly sampled and analyzed 320 comments based on a coding instrument developed for this study. First, there were twice as many comments verbally attacking overweight individuals (n=174) than comments defending them (n=89). Second, overweight women are attacked for their capacities (eg, laziness, maturity; 14/51, 28%), whereas overweight men are attacked for their heterosocial skills (eg, rudeness, annoyance; 24/29, 83%). Third, the majority of commenters who attacked overweight women are male (42/52, 81%). Fourth, attacking comments generated toward overweight women included more swear words (mean 0.44, SD 0.77) than those targeting men (mean 0.23, SD 0.48). Our data elucidate a worrying situation of frequent disinhibited

Weight Stigma Goes Viral on the Internet: Systematic Assessment of YouTube Comments Attacking Overweight Men and Women

Science.gov (United States)

Hale, Brent; Knackmuhs, Eric; Mackert, Michael

2018-01-01

Background Anonymous verbal attacks against overweight individuals on social media are common and widespread. These comments often use negative, misogynist, or derogatory words, which stigmatize the targeted individuals with obesity. These verbal attacks may cause depression in overweight individuals, which could subsequently promote unhealthy eating behavior (ie, binge eating) and further weight gain. To develop an intervention policy and strategies that tackle the anonymous, Web-based verbal attacks, a thorough understanding of the comments is necessary. Objective This study aimed to examine how anonymous users verbally attack or defend overweight individuals in terms of 3 themes: (1) topic of verbal attack (ie, what aspects of overweight individuals are verbally attacked), (2) gender of commenters and targeted overweight individuals, and (3) intensity of derogation depending on the targeted gender (ie, the number of swear words used within comments). Methods This study analyzed the content of YouTube comments that discuss overweight individuals or groups from 2 viral videos, titled “Fat Girl Tinder Date” and “Fat Guy Tinder Date.” The twin videos provide an avenue through which to analyze discussions of obesity as they organically occurred in a contemporary setting. We randomly sampled and analyzed 320 comments based on a coding instrument developed for this study. Results First, there were twice as many comments verbally attacking overweight individuals (n=174) than comments defending them (n=89). Second, overweight women are attacked for their capacities (eg, laziness, maturity; 14/51, 28%), whereas overweight men are attacked for their heterosocial skills (eg, rudeness, annoyance; 24/29, 83%). Third, the majority of commenters who attacked overweight women are male (42/52, 81%). Fourth, attacking comments generated toward overweight women included more swear words (mean 0.44, SD 0.77) than those targeting men (mean 0.23, SD 0.48). Conclusions Our data

Demographic, Psychological, and Weight-Related Correlates of Weight Control Behaviors Among Active Duty Military Personnel

Science.gov (United States)

2007-03-01

model of bulimia nervosa: Evidence for restrained-eating and affect-regulation mechanisms. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 15, 340-363...DATE MAR 2007 2. REPORT TYPE 3. DATES COVERED 00-00-2007 to 00-00-2007 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Demographic, Psychological , and Weight-Related...weigh-in/physical fitness testing. Both weight-related factors and psychological factors were associated with increased odds of engaging in weight

The adoption of social media and social media marketing by dentists in South Africa.

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Snyman, L; Visser, J H

2014-07-01

The purpose of the study was to identify and understand social media usage behaviour of dentists in South Africa, in general and in particular as part of their marketing strategy and to consider the potential determinants associated with these behaviours. Dentists who are members of the South African Dental Association were requested to anonymously complete an online questionnaire. Apart from demographic information, respondents were asked to report on their use of social media and their adoption of social media marketing. One-on-one interviews were also conducted with three dentists, to gain a deeper understanding of their adoption of this marketing option. South African dentists have started to embrace social media and 50.2% interact through these channels at least once a day. The most popular social media platforms are GooglePlus and Facebook. Respondents use social media mainly for personal purposes, including staying connected to family and friends.. Only 13.2% of those responding currently use social media as a marketing tool, but the majority (83.5%) predict that such usage will increase in future. Social media marketing is a growing trend and will become more significant in future. Although respondents used social media regularly for personal purposes, most are only now starting to use it as a marketing tool.

Does Alcoholics Anonymous work differently for men and women? A moderated multiple-mediation analysis in a large clinical sample.

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Kelly, John F; Hoeppner, Bettina B

2013-06-01

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) began as a male organization, but about one third is now female. Studies have found that women participate at least as much as men and benefit equally from AA, but it is unclear whether women benefit from AA in the same or different ways as men. This study tested whether gender moderated the mechanisms through which AA aids recovery. A cohort study of alcohol dependent adults (N=1726; 24% female; Project MATCH) was assessed on AA attendance during treatment; with mediators at 9 months; outcomes (Percent Days Abstinent [PDA] and Drinks per Drinking Day [DDD]) at 15 months. Multiple mediator models tested whether purported mechanisms (i.e., self-efficacy, depression, social networks, spirituality/religiosity) explained AA's effects differently for men and women controlling for baseline values, mediators, treatment, and other confounders. For PDA, the proportion of AA's effect accounted for by the mediators was similar for men (53%) and women (49%). Both men and women were found to benefit from changes in social factors but these mechanisms were more important among men. For DDD, the mediators accounted for 70% of the effect of AA for men and 41% for women. Again, men benefitted mostly from social changes. Independent of AA's effects, negative affect self-efficacy was shown to have a strong relationship to outcome for women but not men. The recovery benefits derived from AA differ in nature and magnitude between men and women and may reflect differing needs based on recovery challenges related to gender-based social roles and drinking contexts. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Applying Semigroup Property of Enhanced Chebyshev Polynomials to Anonymous Authentication Protocol

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Hong Lai

2012-01-01

Full Text Available We apply semigroup property of enhanced Chebyshev polynomials to present an anonymous authentication protocol. This paper aims at improving security and reducing computational and storage overhead. The proposed scheme not only has much lower computational complexity and cost in the initialization phase but also allows the users to choose their passwords freely. Moreover, it can provide revocation of lost or stolen smart card, which can resist man-in-the-middle attack and off-line dictionary attack together with various known attacks.

Exploring the role of Facebook in re-shaping backpacker’s social interactions

OpenAIRE

Berger, Edward Alexander; Paris, Cody Morris

2014-01-01

The recent Facebook launch of Timeline, Social Graph Search, and the increased use of the mobile Facebook apps has resulted in some important implications for the use of Facebook by backpackers. The purpose of this paper is to (re) explore how Facebook has impacted social relationships between backpackers and their personal, professional, and ‘fellow traveller’ networks, particularly in-light of these recent changes to Facebook and the increased reduction of anonymity while travelling. An exp...

Twitter city and Facebook village: Teenage girls’ personas and experiences influenced by choice architecture in social networking sites

OpenAIRE

Binns, Amy

2014-01-01

Anonymity was once the norm online, but uploading personal information on social networks is now ubiquitous amongst teenagers, leading to new concerns about abandonment of privacy and obsessive self-grooming of online identities. However, researchers have not examined whether different social networks result in differing behaviour or happiness, which should be a key issue for media practitioners involved in social network design.\\ud This research examines whether different SNs affect behaviou...

SocialCloudShare: a Facebook Application for a Relationship-based Information Sharing in the Cloud

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davide Albertini

2014-10-01

Full Text Available In last few years, Online Social Networks (OSNs have become one of the most used platforms for sharing data (e.g., pictures, short texts on the Internet. Nowadays Facebook and Twitter are the most popular OSN providers, though they implement different social models. However, independently from the social model they implement, OSN platforms have become a widespread repository of personal information. All these data (e.g., profile information, shared elements, users’ likes are stored in a centralized repository that can be exploited for data mining and marketing analysis. With this data collection process, lots of sensitive information are gathered by OSN providers that, in time, have become more and more targeted by malicious attackers. To overcome this problem, in this paper we present an architectural framework that, by means of a Social Application registered in Facebook, allows users to move their data (e.g., relationships, resources outside the OSN realm and to store them in the public Cloud. Given that the public Cloud is not a secure and private environment, our proposal provides users security and privacy guarantees over their data by encrypting the resources and by anonymizing their social graphs. The presented framework enforces Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC rules over the anonymized social graph, providing OSN users the possibility to selectively share information and resources as they are used to do in Facebook.

A Comparison of the Effects of K-Anonymity on Machine Learning Algorithms

OpenAIRE

Hayden Wimmer; Loreen Powell

2014-01-01

While research has been conducted in machine learning algorithms and in privacy preserving in data mining (PPDM), a gap in the literature exists which combines the aforementioned areas to determine how PPDM affects common machine learning algorithms. The aim of this research is to narrow this literature gap by investigating how a common PPDM algorithm, K-Anonymity, affects common machine learning and data mining algorithms, namely neural networks, logistic regression, decision trees, and Baye...

A Communicative Model of Mothers’ Lifestyles During Pregnancy with Low Birth Weight Based on Social Determinants of Health: A Path Analysis

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Zohreh Mahmoodi1,

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Low birth weight (LBW is one of the major health problems worldwide. It is important to identify the factors that play a role in the incidence of this adverse pregnancy outcome. This study aimed to develop a tool to measure mothers’ lifestyles during pregnancy with a view to the effects of social determinants on health and develop a correlation model of mothers’ lifestyles with LBW. Methods: This study was conducted using methodological and case-control designs in four stages by selecting 750 mothers with infants weighing less than 4000 g using multistage sampling. The questionnaire contained 160 items. Face, content, criterion, and construct validity were used to study the psychometrics of the instrument. Results: After psychometrics, 132 items were approved in six domains. Test results indicated the utility and the high fitness of the model and reasonable relationships adjusted for variables based on conceptual models. Based on the correlation model of lifestyle, occupation (-0.263 and social relationships (0.248 had the greatest overall effect on birth weight. Conclusions: The review of lifestyle dimensions showed that all of the dimensions directly, indirectly, or both affected birth weight. Thus, given the importance and the role of lifestyle as a determinant affecting birth weight, attention, and training interventions are important to promote healthy lifestyles.

The impact of an online social network with wireless monitoring devices on physical activity and weight loss.

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Greene, Jessica; Sacks, Rebecca; Piniewski, Brigitte; Kil, David; Hahn, Jin S

2013-07-01

Online social networks (OSNs) are a new, promising approach for catalyzing health-related behavior change. To date, the empirical evidence on their impact has been limited. Using a randomized trial, we assessed the impact of a health-oriented OSN with accelerometer and scales on participant's physical activity, weight, and clinical indicators. A sample of 349 PeaceHealth Oregon employees and family members were randomized to the iWell OSN or a control group and followed for 6 months in 2010-2011. The iWell OSN enabled participants to connect with "friends," make public postings, view contacts' postings, set goals, download the number of their steps from an accelerometer and their weight from a scale, view trends in physical activity and weight, and compete against others in physical activity. Both control and intervention participants received traditional education material on diet and physical activity. Laboratory data on weight and clinical indicators (triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, or low-density lipoprotein), and self-reported data on physical activity, were collected at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months. At 6 months, the intervention group increased leisure walking minutes by 164% compared with 47% in the control group. The intervention group also lost more weight than the controls (5.2 pounds compared with 1.5 pounds). There were no observed significant differences in vigorous exercise or clinical indicators between the 2 groups. Among intervention participants, greater OSN use, as measured by number of private messages sent, was associated with a greater increase in leisure walking and greater weight reduction over the study period. The study provides evidence that interventions using OSNs can successfully promote increases in physical activity and weight loss.

Smartphone Usage, Social Media Engagement, and Willingness to Participate in mHealth Weight Management Research Among African American Women.

Science.gov (United States)

James, Delores C S; Harville, Cedric

2018-06-01

African American women (AAW) are in a unique position to be recruited into mobile (mHealth) weight management research and programs due to their high rates of obesity and their high ownership of smartphones. This study examined smartphone usage, social media engagement, and willingness to participate in mHealth weight management among AAW in north-central Florida, United States. A self-administered survey was completed by a convenience sample of 425 smartphone owners in north-central Florida. Mean age was 34.84 ± 13.74, with age distribution of 18 to 29 (45%), 30 to 50 (39%), and 51+ years (17%). Mean body mass index was 29.52 ± 8.18. Most used smartphones to access the Internet daily and were engaged with eight social media sites, such as Facebook (85%), YouTube (75%), and Google+ (57%). Compared to those 51+, those 18 to 29 were more likely to use YouTube (odds ratio [OR] = 2.52, p = .017) and Instagram (OR = 10.90, p smartphone apps (68%). Compared to those 51+, women 18 to 29 were more likely to report willingness to use a smartphone app (OR = 5.45, p smartphones, use of mHealth apps and tools, and willingness to participate in mHealth research has the potential to curb the obesity epidemic by participating in mHealth weight management programs and research.

Biased trapping issue on weighted hierarchical networks

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

archical networks which are based on the classic scale-free hierarchical networks. ... Weighted hierarchical networks; weight-dependent walks; mean first passage ..... The weighted networks can mimic some real-world natural and social systems to ... the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education ...

Use of social networking sites and perception and intentions regarding body weight among adolescents

Science.gov (United States)

Sampasa‐Kanyinga, H.; Hamilton, H. A.

2016-01-01

Summary Objective Social networking sites (SNSs) not only offer users an opportunity to link with others but also allow individuals to compare themselves with other users. However, the link between the use of SNSs and the dissatisfaction with body weight is largely unknown. We investigated the associations between the use of SNSs and the perception of body weight and related behaviours among adolescent men and women. Methods The study sample consisted of 4,468 (48.5% women) 11–19‐year‐old Canadian students in grades 7 to 12 who participated in the 2013 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey. Results Overall, 54.6% of students reported using SNSs for 2 h or less per day, 28.0% reported using them for more than 2 h d−1 and 17.4% reported infrequent or no use of SNSs (reference category). After adjustment for covariates, results showed that adolescent women who use SNSs for more than 2 h d−1 had greater odds of dissatisfaction with body weight (odds ratio = 2.02; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.30–3.16). More specifically, they were more likely to perceive themselves as overweight (relative risk ratio [RRR] = 2.20; 95% CI: 1.34−3.60) compared with those who reported infrequent or no use of SNSs. Conversely, men who use SNSs for 2 h or less per day presented a lower risk for perceiving themselves as overweight (RRR = 0.68; 95% CI: 0.47−0.98) but not those who use SNSs for more than 2 h d−1. Women who use SNSs for more than 2 h d−1 reported a greater likelihood of trying to lose weight (RRR = 2.52; 95% CI: 1.62−3.90). Conclusions Our results showed that heavy use of SNSs is associated with dissatisfaction with body weight in adolescent women. PMID:27812377

Anonymity versus privacy: selective information sharing in online cancer communities.

Science.gov (United States)

Frost, Jeana; Vermeulen, Ivar E; Beekers, Nienke

2014-05-14

Active sharing in online cancer communities benefits patients. However, many patients refrain from sharing health information online due to privacy concerns. Existing research on privacy emphasizes data security and confidentiality, largely focusing on electronic medical records. Patient preferences around information sharing in online communities remain poorly understood. Consistent with the privacy calculus perspective adopted from e-commerce research, we suggest that patients approach online information sharing instrumentally, weighing privacy costs against participation benefits when deciding whether to share certain information. Consequently, we argue that patients prefer sharing clinical information over daily life and identity information that potentially compromises anonymity. Furthermore, we explore whether patients' prior experiences, age, health, and gender affect perceived privacy costs and thus willingness to share information. The goal of the present study is to document patient preferences for sharing information within online health platforms. A total of 115 cancer patients reported sharing intentions for 15 different types of information, demographics, health status, prior privacy experiences, expected community utility, and privacy concerns. Factor analysis on the 15 information types revealed 3 factors coinciding with 3 proposed information categories: clinical, daily life, and identity information. A within-subject ANOVA showed a strong preference for sharing clinical information compared to daily life and identity information (F1,114=135.59, P=.001, η(2)=.93). Also, adverse online privacy experiences, age, and health status negatively affected information-sharing intentions. Female patients shared information less willingly. Respondents' information-sharing intentions depend on dispositional and situational factors. Patients share medical details more willingly than daily life or identity information. The results suggest the need to focus on

Selfrando: Securing the Tor Browser against De-anonymization Exploits

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Conti Mauro

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Tor is a well-known anonymous communication system used by millions of users, including journalists and civil rights activists all over the world. The Tor Browser gives non-technical users an easy way to access the Tor Network. However, many government organizations are actively trying to compromise Tor not only in regions with repressive regimes but also in the free world, as the recent FBI incidents clearly demonstrate. Exploiting software vulnerabilities in general, and browser vulnerabilities in particular, constitutes a clear and present threat to the Tor software. The Tor Browser shares a large part of its attack surface with the Firefox browser. Therefore, Firefox vulnerabilities (even patched ones are highly valuable to attackers trying to monitor users of the Tor Browser.

An Anonymous Mutual Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme for Wearable Sensors in Wireless Body Area Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chien-Ming Chen

2018-07-01

Full Text Available The advancement of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN have led to significant progress in medical and health care systems. However, such networks still suffer from major security and privacy threats, especially for the data collected in medical or health care applications. Lack of security and existence of anonymous communication in WBAN brings about the operation failure of these networks. Recently, Li et al. proposed a lightweight protocol for wearable sensors in wireless body area networks. In their paper, the authors claimed that the protocol may provide anonymous mutual authentication and resist against various types of attacks. This study shows that such a protocol is still vulnerable to three types of attacks, i.e., the offline identity guessing attack, the sensor node impersonation attack and the hub node spoofing attack. We then present a secure scheme that addresses these problems, and retains similar efficiency in wireless sensors nodes and mobile phones.

Chaotic maps and biometrics-based anonymous three-party authenticated key exchange protocol without using passwords

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xie Qi; Hu Bin; Chen Ke-Fei; Liu Wen-Hao; Tan Xiao

2015-01-01

In three-party password authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocol, since two users use their passwords to establish a secure session key over an insecure communication channel with the help of the trusted server, such a protocol may suffer the password guessing attacks and the server has to maintain the password table. To eliminate the shortages of password-based AKE protocol, very recently, according to chaotic maps, Lee et al. [2015 Nonlinear Dyn. 79 2485] proposed a first three-party-authenticated key exchange scheme without using passwords, and claimed its security by providing a well-organized BAN logic test. Unfortunately, their protocol cannot resist impersonation attack, which is demonstrated in the present paper. To overcome their security weakness, by using chaotic maps, we propose a biometrics-based anonymous three-party AKE protocol with the same advantages. Further, we use the pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif to show that our AKE protocol achieves authentication, security and anonymity, and an acceptable efficiency. (paper)

Efficacy and causal mechanism of an online social media intervention to increase physical activity: Results of a randomized controlled trial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jingwen Zhang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: To identify what features of social media – promotional messaging or peer networks – can increase physical activity. Method: A 13-week social media-based exercise program was conducted at a large Northeastern university in Philadelphia, PA. In a randomized controlled trial, 217 graduate students from the University were randomized to three conditions: a control condition with a basic online program for enrolling in weekly exercise classes led by instructors of the University for 13 weeks, a media condition that supplemented the basic program with weekly online promotional media messages that encourage physical activity, and a social condition that replaced the media content with an online network of four to six anonymous peers composed of other participants of the program, in which each participant was able to see their peers' progress in enrolling in classes. The primary outcome was the number of enrollments in exercise classes, and the secondary outcomes were self-reported physical activities. Data were collected in 2014. Results: Participants enrolled in 5.5 classes on average. Compared with enrollment in the control condition (mean = 4.5, promotional messages moderately increased enrollment (mean = 5.7, p = 0.08, while anonymous social networks significantly increased enrollment (mean = 6.3, p = 0.02. By the end of the program, participants in the social condition reported exercising moderately for an additional 1.6 days each week compared with the baseline, which was significantly more than an additional 0.8 days in the control condition. Conclusion: Social influence from anonymous online peers was more successful than promotional messages for improving physical activity. Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02267369.

Associations between the use of social networking sites and unhealthy eating behaviours and excess body weight in adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Sampasa-Kanyinga, Hugues; Chaput, Jean-Philippe; Hamilton, Hayley A

2015-12-14

Unhealthy eating behaviour and excess body weight have been related to sedentary behaviour, particularly screen time, in adolescents; however, little is known about their associations with the use of social networking sites (SNS). We investigated the associations between time spent using SNS and unhealthy eating behaviours (including breakfast skipping, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and energy drinks) and body weight in adolescents. Data on 9858 students (mean age: 15·2 (SD 1·9) years) in grades 7 through 12 were derived from the 2013 cycle of the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey--a cross-sectional school-based survey of middle and high school students. The majority (81·5%) of students reported daily use of SNS and an additional 10·7% reported using them on an irregular basis. Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that the use of SNS was associated with increased odds of skipping breakfast (P trendsocial networks on eating behaviours and risk of excess weight.

Der Einfluss von Anonymität in der Lehrevaluation durch Studierende [The Effects of Anonymity on Student Ratings of Teaching and Course Quality in a Bachelor Degree Programme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Schaffner, Noemi

2013-08-01

Full Text Available [english] Research Question: Are there any clear differences between the outcomes of anonymous and personalised student evaluations of teaching quality?Methods: During a two-year period students were randomly divided into two separate groups, “anonymous” and “personalised”, for end-of-module evaluations. The quality of the module was assessed using a standardised questionnaire. Additionally, students were given the option to add “further comments” if they wanted to highlight specifics.These optional comments were independently assessed by three people, using a five-dimensional rating instrument: positive/negative; differentiated/absolute; naming a person/general; containing an order/neutral; visually accentuated/blank.The database consisted of 615 evaluation forms, of which 306 were completed anonymously. In order to identify whether there were any differences between the anonymous and personalised data, a multivariate variance analysis was performed. Based on the scale, the answers to the questions and the quality of the comments were evaluated. Furthermore, an assessment was made to determine if there were any differences in the number of optional comments between the two groups. Results: No significant differences were identified in the informative quality of data between the anonymous and personalised student evaluations. However, students in the personalised group had a tendency to include more details in their written answers.Conclusion: Personalised evaluations do not generate more biased results in terms of social desirability, as long as the evaluation concept is characterised by a closed-circle process and is transparent. In other words, it is imperative that the outcomes of the evaluation are reported back to the students. Moreover, there has to be an opportunity for students to discuss any further suggestions and/or future desires in an open environment. In this way the students respect and understand that their feedback

Cloud Based Data Protection in Anonymously Controlled SDN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jian Shen

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, Software Defined Network (SDN develops rapidly for its novel structure which separates the control plane and the data plane of network devices. Many researchers devoted themselves to the study of such a special network. However, some limitations restrict the development of SDN. On the one hand, the single controller in the conventional model bears all threats, and the corruption of it will result in network paralysis. On the other hand, the data will be increasing more in SDN switches in the data plane, while the storage space of these switches is limited. In order to solve the mentioned issues, we propose two corresponding protocols in this paper. Specifically, one is an anonymous protocol in the control plane, and the other is a verifiable outsourcing protocol in the data plane. The evaluation indicates that our protocol is correct, secure, and efficient.

The Anonymization Protection Algorithm Based on Fuzzy Clustering for the Ego of Data in the Internet of Things

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mingshan Xie

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In order to enhance the enthusiasm of the data provider in the process of data interaction and improve the adequacy of data interaction, we put forward the concept of the ego of data and then analyzed the characteristics of the ego of data in the Internet of Things (IOT in this paper. We implement two steps of data clustering for the Internet of things; the first step is the spatial location of adjacent fuzzy clustering, and the second step is the sampling time fuzzy clustering. Equivalent classes can be obtained through the two steps. In this way we can make the data with layout characteristics to be classified into different equivalent classes, so that the specific location information of the data can be obscured, the layout characteristics of tags are eliminated, and ultimately anonymization protection would be achieved. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can greatly improve the efficiency of protection of the data in the interaction with others in the incompletely open manner, without reducing the quality of anonymization and enhancing the information loss. The anonymization data set generated by this method has better data availability, and this algorithm can effectively improve the security of data exchange.

Paved with good intentions: Paradoxical eating responses to weight stigma.

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Nolan, Laurence J; Eshleman, Amy

2016-07-01

Because body weight is largely seen as controllable, weight stigma-the social devaluation of those who are overweight-is not subject to the social norms that condemn open expression of racism and sexism. Indeed, rejection of peers based on perceptions of excess weight is normative. Since weight stigma is internalized, popular views (and often the views of physicians) have suggested that increasing the salience of weight stigma might produce a reduction in overeating and/or an increase in physical activity. However, that perspective is not rooted in scientific evidence. Recent randomized controlled designs demonstrate that stigma may promote overeating. Correlational evidence suggests that self-reported stigma experience is associated with risk for binge eating and decreased interest in physical exercise and dieting, for children and adults. In addition to reviewing these research studies, this paper examines the potential for intersectionality of stigma across multiple social identities and considers alternatives to stigmatizing weight loss interventions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Challenging the role of social norms regarding body weight as an explanation for weight, height, and BMI misreporting biases: Development and application of a new approach to examining misreporting and misclassification bias in surveys

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Brestoff, Jonathan R

2011-05-18

Abstract Background Cultural pressures to be thin and tall are postulated to cause people to misreport their body weight and height towards more socially normative (i.e., desirable) values, but a paucity of direct evidence supports this idea. We developed a novel non-linear approach to examining weight, height, and BMI misreporting biases and used this approach to examine the association between socially non-normative weight and misreporting biases in adults. Methods The Survey of Lifestyles, Attitudes, and Nutrition 2007 (SLÁN 2007), a nationally representative survey of the Republic of Ireland (N = 1942 analyzed) was used. Self-reported weight (height) was classified as under-reported by ≥2.0 kg (2.0 cm), over-reported by ≥2.0 kg (2.0 cm), or accurately reported within 2.0 kg (2.0 cm) to account for technical errors of measurement and short-term fluctuations in measured weight (height). A simulation strategy was used to define self-report-based BMI as under-estimated by more than 1.40 kg\\/m2, over-estimated by more than 1.40 kg\\/m2, or accurately estimated within 1.40 kg\\/m2. Patterns of biases in self-reported weight, height, and BMI were explored. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with mis-estimated BMI and to calculate adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and 99% confidence intervals (99%CI). Results The patterns of bias contributing the most to BMI mis-estimation were consistently, in decreasing order of influence, (1) under-reported weight combined with over-reported height, (2) under-reported weight with accurately reported height, and (3) accurately reported weight with over-reported height. Average bias in self-report-based BMI was -1.34 kg\\/m2 overall and -0.49, -1.33, and -2.66 kg\\/m2 in normal, overweight, and obese categories, respectively. Despite the increasing degree of bias with progressively higher BMI categories, persons describing themselves as too heavy were, within any given BMI category, less likely to have under

Anonymity Versus Privacy: Selective Information Sharing in Online Cancer Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Vermeulen, Ivar E; Beekers, Nienke

2014-01-01

Background Active sharing in online cancer communities benefits patients. However, many patients refrain from sharing health information online due to privacy concerns. Existing research on privacy emphasizes data security and confidentiality, largely focusing on electronic medical records. Patient preferences around information sharing in online communities remain poorly understood. Consistent with the privacy calculus perspective adopted from e-commerce research, we suggest that patients approach online information sharing instrumentally, weighing privacy costs against participation benefits when deciding whether to share certain information. Consequently, we argue that patients prefer sharing clinical information over daily life and identity information that potentially compromises anonymity. Furthermore, we explore whether patients’ prior experiences, age, health, and gender affect perceived privacy costs and thus willingness to share information. Objective The goal of the present study is to document patient preferences for sharing information within online health platforms. Methods A total of 115 cancer patients reported sharing intentions for 15 different types of information, demographics, health status, prior privacy experiences, expected community utility, and privacy concerns. Results Factor analysis on the 15 information types revealed 3 factors coinciding with 3 proposed information categories: clinical, daily life, and identity information. A within-subject ANOVA showed a strong preference for sharing clinical information compared to daily life and identity information (F 1,114=135.59, P=.001, η2=.93). Also, adverse online privacy experiences, age, and health status negatively affected information-sharing intentions. Female patients shared information less willingly. Conclusions Respondents’ information-sharing intentions depend on dispositional and situational factors. Patients share medical details more willingly than daily life or identity

Topology dependent epidemic spreading velocity in weighted networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Duan, W.; Quax, R.; Lees, M.; Qiu, X.; Sloot, P.M.A.

2014-01-01

Many diffusive processes occur on structured networks with weighted links, such as disease spread by airplane transport or information diffusion in social networks or blogs. Understanding the impact of weight-connectivity correlations on epidemic spreading in weighted networks is crucial to support

Prenatal prochloraz treatment significantly increases pregnancy length and reduces offspring weight but does not affect social-olfactory memory in rats.

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Dmytriyeva, Oksana; Klementiev, Boris; Berezin, Vladimir; Bock, Elisabeth

2013-07-01

Metabolites of the commonly used imidazole fungicide prochloraz are androgen receptor antagonists. They have been shown to block androgen-driven development and compromise reproductive function. We tested the effect of prochloraz on cognitive behavior following exposure to this fungicide during the perinatal period. Pregnant Wistar rats were administered a 200 mg/kg dose of prochloraz on gestational day (GD) 7, GD11, and GD15. The social recognition test (SRT) was performed on 7-week-old male rat offspring. We found an increase in pregnancy length and a significantly reduced pup weight on PND15 and PND40 but no effect of prenatal prochloraz exposure on social investigation or acquisition of social-olfactory memory. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Frequency and risk factors for donor reactions in an anonymous blood donor survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldman, Mindy; Osmond, Lori; Yi, Qi-Long; Cameron-Choi, Keltie; O'Brien, Sheila F

2013-09-01

Adverse donor reactions can result in injury and decrease the likelihood of donor return. Reaction reports captured in the blood center's database provide an incomplete picture of reaction rates and risk factors. We performed an anonymous survey, mailed to 40,000 donors in 2008, including questions about symptoms, height, weight, sex, and donation status. Reaction rates were compared to those recorded in our database. Possible risk factors were assessed for various reactions. The response rate was 45.5%. A total of 32% of first-time and 14% of repeat donors reported having any adverse symptom, most frequently bruising (84.9 per 1000 donors) or feeling faint or weak (66.2 per 1000). Faint reactions were two to eight times higher than reported in our database, although direct comparison was difficult. Younger age, female sex, and first-time donation status were risk factors for systemic and arm symptoms. In females, low estimated blood volume (EBV) was a risk factor for systemic symptoms. Only 51% of donors who consulted an outside physician also called Canadian Blood Services. A total of 10% of first-time donors with reactions found adverse effects information inadequate. This study allowed us to collect more information about adverse reactions, including minor symptoms and delayed reactions. Based on our findings of the risk factors and frequency of adverse reactions, we are implementing more stringent EBV criteria for younger donors and providing more detailed information to donors about possible adverse effects and their management. © 2012 American Association of Blood Banks.

The social impact of natural language processing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hovy, Dirk; Spruit, Shannon

Research in natural language processing (NLP) used to be mostly performed on anonymous corpora, with the goal of enriching linguistic analysis. Authors were either largely unknown or public figures. As we increasingly use more data from social media, this situation has changed: users are now...... individually identifiable, and the outcome of NLP experiments and applications can have a direct effect on their lives. This change should spawn a debate about the ethical implications of NLP, but until now, the internal discourse in the field has not followed the technological development. This position paper...... identifies a number of social implications that NLP research may have, and discusses their ethical significance, as well as ways to address them....

An improved biometrics-based remote user authentication scheme with user anonymity.

Science.gov (United States)

Khan, Muhammad Khurram; Kumari, Saru

2013-01-01

The authors review the biometrics-based user authentication scheme proposed by An in 2012. The authors show that there exist loopholes in the scheme which are detrimental for its security. Therefore the authors propose an improved scheme eradicating the flaws of An's scheme. Then a detailed security analysis of the proposed scheme is presented followed by its efficiency comparison. The proposed scheme not only withstands security problems found in An's scheme but also provides some extra features with mere addition of only two hash operations. The proposed scheme allows user to freely change his password and also provides user anonymity with untraceability.

Atheists, agnostics and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Science.gov (United States)

Tonigan, J Scott; Miller, W R; Schermer, Carol

2002-09-01

In spite of the strong emphasis in AA on spiritual beliefs and practices, findings are mixed about the importance of such beliefs in predicting AA affiliation. This study of the Project MATCH outpatient (N = 952) and aftercare (N = 774) samples tested three hypotheses about the role of client God belief and subsequent AA attendance and benefit, taking into account that some individuals may, in fact, deny the existence of a God. Longitudinal analyses were conducted (N = 1,526) investigating client God beliefs, AA attendance, patterns of AA attendance and alcohol use. Assessments were conducted at intake and in 3-month intervals using the Form 90, Religious Behaviors and Background, and the Alcoholics Anonymous Inventory. 12-Step treatment was significantly more likely to promote pre-post shifts in client God beliefs, and atheist and agnostic clients attended AA significantly less often throughout follow-up relative to clients self-labeled as spiritual and religious. AA attendance, however, was significantly associated with increased abstinence and reductions in drinking intensity regardless of God belief. Finally, no differences in percent days abstinence and drinking intensity were found between atheist and agnostic versus spiritual and religious clients, but clients unsure about their God belief reported significantly higher drinking frequency relative to the other groups. God belief appears to be relatively unimportant in deriving AA-related benefit, but atheist and agnostic clients are less likely to initiate and sustain AA attendance relative to spiritual and religious clients. This apparent reticence to affiliate with AA ought to be clinically recognized when encouraging AA participation.

RSEQtools: a modular framework to analyze RNA-Seq data using compact, anonymized data summaries.

Science.gov (United States)

Habegger, Lukas; Sboner, Andrea; Gianoulis, Tara A; Rozowsky, Joel; Agarwal, Ashish; Snyder, Michael; Gerstein, Mark

2011-01-15

The advent of next-generation sequencing for functional genomics has given rise to quantities of sequence information that are often so large that they are difficult to handle. Moreover, sequence reads from a specific individual can contain sufficient information to potentially identify and genetically characterize that person, raising privacy concerns. In order to address these issues, we have developed the Mapped Read Format (MRF), a compact data summary format for both short and long read alignments that enables the anonymization of confidential sequence information, while allowing one to still carry out many functional genomics studies. We have developed a suite of tools (RSEQtools) that use this format for the analysis of RNA-Seq experiments. These tools consist of a set of modules that perform common tasks such as calculating gene expression values, generating signal tracks of mapped reads and segmenting that signal into actively transcribed regions. Moreover, the tools can readily be used to build customizable RNA-Seq workflows. In addition to the anonymization afforded by MRF, this format also facilitates the decoupling of the alignment of reads from downstream analyses. RSEQtools is implemented in C and the source code is available at http://rseqtools.gersteinlab.org/.

A robust uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Fengtong

2013-12-01

User authentication plays an important role to protect resources or services from being accessed by unauthorized users. In a recent paper, Das et al. proposed a secure and efficient uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care. This scheme uses three factors, e.g. biometrics, password, and smart card, to protect the security. It protects user privacy and is believed to have many abilities to resist a range of network attacks, even if the secret information stored in the smart card is compromised. In this paper, we analyze the security of Das et al.'s scheme, and show that the scheme is in fact insecure against the replay attack, user impersonation attacks and off-line guessing attacks. Then, we also propose a robust uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care. Compared with the existing schemes, our protocol uses a different user authentication mechanism to resist replay attack. We show that our proposed scheme can provide stronger security than previous protocols. Furthermore, we demonstrate the validity of the proposed scheme through the BAN (Burrows, Abadi, and Needham) logic.

Attempts to lose weight among overweight and non-overweight adolescents: a cross-national survey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tynjälä Jorma

2007-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Despite the global obesity epidemic, few studies have performed cross-national comparisons of adolescents' attempts to lose weight and weight control practices. This study aims to investigate matters mentioned above by weight status in Europe, Israel, and North America. Methods Nationally representative samples of adolescents from over 30 countries completed an anonymous, standardized questionnaire as part of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children 2001/2002 survey. The prevalence and likelihood of attempts to lose weight were determined. The effect of weight status, self-perception of overweight, age and country of residence upon the likelihood of current attempts to lose weight were evaluated using multilevel multivariate logistic regression in separate analyses for boys and girls. The study also presented the prevalence of weight control practices of overweight and non-overweight adolescents who had controlled their weight in seven countries. Results In general, overweight and obese adolescents were more likely to be engaged in current attempts to lose weight and had tried to control their weight during the past 12 months more often than non-overweight adolescents. Besides weight status, self-perception of overweight and age were significant individual-level factors determining current attempts to lose weight. Country of residence was a significant second-level factor but no clear geographical pattern was found. Several gender-related differences existed. Conclusion The findings indicated that most overweight adolescents were motivated to reduce their weight. The importance of promoting a healthy body image for all adolescents was highlighted by the fact that self-perception of overweight was found to be the most important factor leading to attempts to lose weight.

Sexuality Information Needs of Latino and African American Ninth Graders: A Content Analysis of Anonymous Questions

Science.gov (United States)

Angulo-Olaiz, Francisca; Goldfarb, Eva S.; Constantine, Norman A.

2014-01-01

This study used qualitative content analysis to examine anonymous questions about sex and sexuality submitted by Latino and African American adolescents in Los Angeles, California, classrooms. The majority of questions asked about sexuality and sexual behavior, or anatomy and physiology, with fewer questions about pregnancy and pregnancy…

Neighborhood Social Predictors of Weight-related Measures in Underserved African Americans in the PATH Trial.

Science.gov (United States)

McDaniel, Tyler C; Wilson, Dawn K; Coulon, Sandra M; Hand, Gregory A; Siceloff, E Rebekah

2015-11-05

African Americans have the highest rate of obesity in the United States relative to other ethnic minority groups. Bioecological factors including neighborhood social and physical environmental variables may be important predictors of weight-related measures specifically body mass index (BMI) in African American adults. Baseline data from the Positive Action for Today's Health (PATH) trial were collected from 417 African American adults. Overall a multiple regression model for BMI was significant, showing positive associations with average daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (B =-.21, Psocial interaction (B =-.13, Psocial interaction was associated with healthier BMI, highlighting it as a potential critical factor for future interventions in underserved, African American communities.

The Social Strategy Game

Science.gov (United States)

Gurven, Michael; Kaplan, Hillard; Winking, Jeffrey

2010-01-01

This paper examines social determinants of resource competition among Tsimane Amerindian women of Bolivia. We introduce a semi-anonymous experiment (the Social Strategy Game) designed to simulate resource competition among women. Information concerning dyadic social relationships and demographic data were collected to identify variables influencing resource competition intensity, as measured by the number of beads one woman took from another. Relationship variables are used to test how the affiliative or competitive aspects of dyads affect the extent of prosociality in the game. Using a mixed-modeling procedure, we find that women compete with those with whom they are quarreling over accusations of meat theft, mate competition, and rumor spreading. They also compete with members of their social network and with those who were designated as cooperative helpers or as close kin. Women take fewer beads from desired friends, neighbors, and from those viewed as enemies. We interpret favoritism toward enemies as resulting from fear of retribution. Our results suggest that social relations among women are multifaceted and often cannot be simplified by exclusive focus on genetic relatedness, physical proximity, or reciprocity. We argue that a complex understanding of cooperation and competition among women may require important contextual information concerning relationship history in addition to typical features of resource ecology. PMID:20526460

Robust anonymous authentication scheme for telecare medical information systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Qi; Zhang, Jun; Dong, Na

2013-04-01

Patient can obtain sorts of health-care delivery services via Telecare Medical Information Systems (TMIS). Authentication, security, patient's privacy protection and data confidentiality are important for patient or doctor accessing to Electronic Medical Records (EMR). In 2012, Chen et al. showed that Khan et al.'s dynamic ID-based authentication scheme has some weaknesses and proposed an improved scheme, and they claimed that their scheme is more suitable for TMIS. However, we show that Chen et al.'s scheme also has some weaknesses. In particular, Chen et al.'s scheme does not provide user's privacy protection and perfect forward secrecy, is vulnerable to off-line password guessing attack and impersonation attack once user's smart card is compromised. Further, we propose a secure anonymity authentication scheme to overcome their weaknesses even an adversary can know all information stored in smart card.

Identification of influential spreaders in online social networks using interaction weighted K-core decomposition method

Science.gov (United States)

Al-garadi, Mohammed Ali; Varathan, Kasturi Dewi; Ravana, Sri Devi

2017-02-01

Online social networks (OSNs) have become a vital part of everyday living. OSNs provide researchers and scientists with unique prospects to comprehend individuals on a scale and to analyze human behavioral patterns. Influential spreaders identification is an important subject in understanding the dynamics of information diffusion in OSNs. Targeting these influential spreaders is significant in planning the techniques for accelerating the propagation of information that is useful for various applications, such as viral marketing applications or blocking the diffusion of annoying information (spreading of viruses, rumors, online negative behaviors, and cyberbullying). Existing K-core decomposition methods consider links equally when calculating the influential spreaders for unweighted networks. Alternatively, the proposed link weights are based only on the degree of nodes. Thus, if a node is linked to high-degree nodes, then this node will receive high weight and is treated as an important node. Conversely, the degree of nodes in OSN context does not always provide accurate influence of users. In the present study, we improve the K-core method for OSNs by proposing a novel link-weighting method based on the interaction among users. The proposed method is based on the observation that the interaction of users is a significant factor in quantifying the spreading capability of user in OSNs. The tracking of diffusion links in the real spreading dynamics of information verifies the effectiveness of our proposed method for identifying influential spreaders in OSNs as compared with degree centrality, PageRank, and original K-core.

Motives for using Facebook, patterns of Facebook activities, and late adolescents' social adjustment to college.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Chia-chen; Brown, B Bradford

2013-03-01

Previous studies have confirmed that Facebook, the leading social networking site among young people, facilitates social connections among college students, but the specific activities and motives that foster social adjustment remain unclear. This study examined associations between patterns of Facebook activity, motives for using Facebook, and late adolescents' social adjustment to the college environment. Anonymous self-report survey data from 193 mostly European American students (M age = 20.32; 54 % female) attending a major Midwestern university indicated that motives and activity patterns were associated directly with social adjustment, but the association between one activity, status updating, and social adjustment also was moderated by the motive of relationship maintenance. Findings provide a more comprehensive portrait of how Facebook use may foster or inhibit social adjustment in college.

Population weighted raster maps can communicate findings of social audits: examples from three continents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mitchell Steven

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Maps can portray trends, patterns, and spatial differences that might be overlooked in tabular data and are now widely used in health research. Little has been reported about the process of using maps to communicate epidemiological findings. Method Population weighted raster maps show colour changes over the study area. Similar to the rasters of barometric pressure in a weather map, data are the health occurrence – a peak on the map represents a higher value of the indicator in question. The population relevance of each sentinel site, as determined in the stratified last stage random sample, combines with geography (inverse-distance weighting to provide a population-weighted extension of each colour. This transforms the map to show population space rather than simply geographic space. Results Maps allowed discussion of strategies to reduce violence against women in a context of political sensitivity about quoting summary indicator figures. Time-series maps showed planners how experiences of health services had deteriorated despite a reform programme; where in a country HIV risk behaviours were improving; and how knowledge of an economic development programme quickly fell off across a region. Change maps highlighted where indicators were improving and where they were deteriorating. Maps of potential impact of interventions, based on multivariate modelling, displayed how partial and full implementation of programmes could improve outcomes across a country. Scale depends on context. To support local planning, district maps or local government authority maps of health indicators were more useful than national maps; but multinational maps of outcomes were more useful for regional institutions. Mapping was useful to illustrate in which districts enrolment in religious schools – a rare occurrence - was more prevalent. Conclusions Population weighted raster maps can present social audit findings in an accessible and compelling

Population weighted raster maps can communicate findings of social audits: examples from three continents.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Steven; Cockcroft, Anne; Andersson, Neil

2011-12-21

Maps can portray trends, patterns, and spatial differences that might be overlooked in tabular data and are now widely used in health research. Little has been reported about the process of using maps to communicate epidemiological findings. Population weighted raster maps show colour changes over the study area. Similar to the rasters of barometric pressure in a weather map, data are the health occurrence--a peak on the map represents a higher value of the indicator in question. The population relevance of each sentinel site, as determined in the stratified last stage random sample, combines with geography (inverse-distance weighting) to provide a population-weighted extension of each colour. This transforms the map to show population space rather than simply geographic space. Maps allowed discussion of strategies to reduce violence against women in a context of political sensitivity about quoting summary indicator figures. Time-series maps showed planners how experiences of health services had deteriorated despite a reform programme; where in a country HIV risk behaviours were improving; and how knowledge of an economic development programme quickly fell off across a region. Change maps highlighted where indicators were improving and where they were deteriorating. Maps of potential impact of interventions, based on multivariate modelling, displayed how partial and full implementation of programmes could improve outcomes across a country. Scale depends on context. To support local planning, district maps or local government authority maps of health indicators were more useful than national maps; but multinational maps of outcomes were more useful for regional institutions. Mapping was useful to illustrate in which districts enrolment in religious schools--a rare occurrence--was more prevalent. Population weighted raster maps can present social audit findings in an accessible and compelling way, increasing the use of evidence by planners with limited numeracy

An Improved Biometrics-Based Remote User Authentication Scheme with User Anonymity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Khurram Khan

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The authors review the biometrics-based user authentication scheme proposed by An in 2012. The authors show that there exist loopholes in the scheme which are detrimental for its security. Therefore the authors propose an improved scheme eradicating the flaws of An’s scheme. Then a detailed security analysis of the proposed scheme is presented followed by its efficiency comparison. The proposed scheme not only withstands security problems found in An’s scheme but also provides some extra features with mere addition of only two hash operations. The proposed scheme allows user to freely change his password and also provides user anonymity with untraceability.

Social media usage among health care providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Surani, Zoya; Hirani, Rahim; Elias, Anita; Quisenberry, Lauren; Varon, Joseph; Surani, Sara; Surani, Salim

2017-11-29

The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of social media among healthcare workers in an attempt to identify how it affects the quality of patient care. An anonymous survey of 35 questions was conducted in South Texas, on 366 healthcare workers. Of the 97% of people who reported owning electronic devices, 87.9% indicated that they used social media. These healthcare workers indicated that they spent approximately 1 h on social media every day. The healthcare workers below the age of 40 were more involved in social media compared to those above 40 (p social media among physicians and nurses was noted to be identical (88% for each group), and both groups encouraged their patients to research their clinical conditions on social media (p social media policy in their hospital compared to nurses (p < 0.05). However, a large proportion of healthcare workers (40%) were unaware of their workplace policy, which could potentially cause a privacy breach of confidential medical information. Further studies are required to evaluate specific effects of these findings on the quality of patient care.

Weight Gain Prevention among Midlife Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial to Address Needs Related to the Physical and Social Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Courtney D. Perry

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Women tend to gain weight at midlife (40–60 years increasing risk of obesity-related chronic diseases. Within specific eating occasions, needs related to the physical and social environment may result in less healthy eating behavior, which can lead to weight gain over time. The purpose of this study was to determine if a dietitian-delivered nutrition counseling intervention tailored to eating occasion needs could improve diet and prevent weight gain among midlife women over two years. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with healthy midlife women (n = 354 in one U.S. metropolitan area. The intervention group (n = 185 received ten hours of individual nutrition counseling from dietitians over six months, while women in a control group (n = 169 received no counseling. Measured height, weight and waist circumference, and dietary intakes were collected at baseline and every six months over two years. Mixed linear models were used to test for intervention effect on change in outcome variables over time. Dietary intakes of fruit, reduced/low-fat dairy foods and refined grains were significantly improved over time in the intervention compared to control group. However, the intervention had no effect on weight over time (p = 0.48. Nutrition counseling tailored to address eating occasion needs improved self-reported diet but did not significantly affect weight change.

Sex Differences in Attitudes towards Online Privacy and Anonymity among Israeli Students with Different Technical Backgrounds

Science.gov (United States)

Weinberger, Maor; Zhitomirsky-Geffet, Maayan; Bouhnik, Dan

2017-01-01

Introduction: In this exploratory study, we proposed an experimental framework to investigate and model male/female differences in attitudes towards online privacy and anonymity among Israeli students. Our aim was to comparatively model men and women's online privacy attitudes, and to assess the online privacy gender gap. Method: Various factors…

Criminología Informática. Anonymous: ¿justicia cibernética o terrorismo enmascarado?/Informatic Criminology. Anonymous: ¿Cyber Justice or masked terrorism?

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Daniel Romano Ozcáriz

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Desde hace ya una década se viene escuchando las acciones cibernéticas de un grupo de ciberactivistas autodenominado Anonymous, pero ¿qué sabemos realmente de ellos? Ciertamente poco, debido en parte a la anárquica organización que los representa y a la ingente cantidad de bulos y rumores sin confirmar que inundan las redes. En honor a la verdad, es imprescindible hacer una limpieza de información y separar lo que es este grupo realmente de lo que es puro desprestigio o sobrevaloración, y de las mentiras. Para ello analizaremos cinco puntos fundamentales, para una mejor comprensión: su definición, valores, principios, simbología y su historia/acciones más representativas.

Anonymous or confidential HIV counseling and voluntary testing in federally funded testing sites--United States, 1995-1997.

Science.gov (United States)

1999-06-25

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) counseling and voluntary testing (CT) programs have been an important part of national HIV prevention efforts since the first HIV antibody tests became available in 1985. In 1995, these programs accounted for approximately 15% of annual HIV antibody testing in the United States, excluding testing for blood donation. CT opportunities are offered to persons at risk for HIV infection at approximately 11,000 sites, including dedicated HIV CT sites, sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics, drug-treatment centers, hospitals, and prisons. In 39 states, testing can be obtained anonymously, where persons do not have to give their name to get tested. All states provide confidential testing (by name) and have confidentiality laws and regulations to protect this information. This report compares patterns of anonymous and confidential testing in all federally funded CT programs from 1995 through 1997 and documents the importance of both types of testing opportunities.

Gamblers Anonymous in Israel: a participant observation study of a self-help group.

Science.gov (United States)

Cromer, G

1978-10-01

This participant observation study of the first Gamblers Anonymous group in Israel is designed to show (1) the ways in which the group helps it members rehabilitate themselves, (2) the three stages through which they must go in order to ensure success, and (3) the reason why some participants fail to do so. The article concludes with a number of observations concerning the extent of gambling in Israel and the different ways that should be developed for dealing with the problem.

Twitter-Delivered Behavioral Weight-Loss Interventions: A Pilot Series.

Science.gov (United States)

Pagoto, Sherry L; Waring, Molly E; Schneider, Kristin L; Oleski, Jessica L; Olendzki, Effie; Hayes, Rashelle B; Appelhans, Bradley M; Whited, Matthew C; Busch, Andrew M; Lemon, Stephenie C

2015-10-23

Lifestyle interventions are efficacious at reducing risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease but have not had a significant public health impact given high cost and patient and provider burden. Online social networks may reduce the burden of lifestyle interventions to the extent that they displace in-person visits and may enhance opportunities for social support for weight loss. We conducted an iterative series of pilot studies to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of using online social networks to deliver a lifestyle intervention. In Study 1 (n=10), obese participants with depression received lifestyle counseling via 12 weekly group visits and a private group formed using the online social network, Twitter. Mean weight loss was 2.3 pounds (SD 7.7; range -19.2 to 8.2) or 1.2% (SD 3.6) of baseline weight. A total of 67% (6/9) of participants completing exit interviews found the support of the Twitter group at least somewhat useful. In Study 2 (n=11), participants were not depressed and were required to be regular users of social media. Participants lost, on average, 5.6 pounds (SD 6.3; range -15 to 0) or 3.0% (SD 3.4) of baseline weight, and 100% (9/9) completing exit interviews found the support of the Twitter group at least somewhat useful. To explore the feasibility of eliminating in-person visits, in Study 3 (n=12), we delivered a 12-week lifestyle intervention almost entirely via Twitter by limiting the number of group visits to one, while using the same inclusion criteria as that used in Study 2. Participants lost, on average, 5.4 pounds (SD 6.4; range -14.2 to 3.9) or 3.0% (SD 3.1) of baseline weight, and 90% (9/10) completing exit interviews found the support of the Twitter group at least somewhat useful. Findings revealed that a private Twitter weight-loss group was both feasible and acceptable for many patients, particularly among regular users of social media. Future research should evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of online

The impacts of electronic word of mouth in social media on consumers` purchase intentions

OpenAIRE

Evans, C; Erkan, I

2014-01-01

The influence of Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) on consumers` purchase intentions has been known for a long time. However, eWOM has gained a new dimension with the advent of social media. Before this new phenomenon, people were able to talk with anonymous people on the Internet. Social media enable people to talk with friends and acquaintances, on the Internet. This new way of eWOM might be more powerful in terms of triggering purchase intention. This study discusses the electronic word of m...

Social Structure and Depression in TrevorSpace.

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Homan, Christopher M; Lu, Naiji; Tu, Xin; Lytle, Megan C; Silenzio, Vincent M B

2014-02-01

We discover patterns related to depression in the social graph of an online community of approximately 20,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. With survey data on fewer than two hundred community members and the network graph of the entire community (which is completely anonymous except for the survey responses), we detected statistically significant correlations between a number of graph properties and those TrevorSpace users showing a higher likelihood of depression, according to the Patient Healthcare Questionnaire-9, a standard instrument for estimating depression. Our results suggest that those who are less depressed are more deeply integrated into the social fabric of TrevorSpace than those who are more depressed. Our techniques may apply to other hard-to-reach online communities, like gay men on Facebook, where obtaining detailed information about individuals is difficult or expensive, but obtaining the social graph is not.

Group colocation behavior in technological social networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chloë Brown

Full Text Available We analyze two large datasets from technological networks with location and social data: user location records from an online location-based social networking service, and anonymized telecommunications data from a European cellphone operator, in order to investigate the differences between individual and group behavior with respect to physical location. We discover agreements between the two datasets: firstly, that individuals are more likely to meet with one friend at a place they have not visited before, but tend to meet at familiar locations when with a larger group. We also find that groups of individuals are more likely to meet at places that their other friends have visited, and that the type of a place strongly affects the propensity for groups to meet there. These differences between group and solo mobility has potential technological applications, for example, in venue recommendation in location-based social networks.

THE USES OF HUMOR IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE: ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL WORKERS’ EXPERIENCE

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Gabrielė Vaitulionytė

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The article discusses how humor could enrich social work practice and guideline social workers. Social work field is not that traditionally relates with humor. While social work scholars argue that social work field is full of contradictions and humor is relevant tool to express those contradictions and paradoxes. In micro level practice Gitterman (2003 suggests humor could be a creative tool that “must be used differently based on client background, level of functioning, and specific situation”. Article presents results of qualitative study. The analysis of social workers’ professional experiences is based on social constructionism perspective with the aim to explain how humor is used in everyday practice and how use of purposive humor could be helpful in social work intervention. Episodic interviews with six social workers working in intercultural social work field were conducted. Transcripts of interviews were analyzed through conceptualization, developing story and maximizing aims of the study. Anonymity and confidentiality was considered. The results of analysis demonstrate that humor is unique experience in the sociocultural context. Discursive categories explain the purpose of humor for practice, circumstances and conditions for using that determine how the use of humor could contribute to the success of a social worker-client interaction. Using humor is considered as professional competence, which suggests that “having a good sense of humor” and appropriate use of humor with ability to demonstrate empathy and honesty in social worker-client interaction is an important part of social worker competence. Humor as a professional competence contained understanding of the humorous taboo. During analysis were explored how using humor and cultural stories of clients create mezzo level strategies for professional social work practice. Keywords: humor in social work practice, social work process, humor taboo.

Weight discrimination and bullying.

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Puhl, Rebecca M; King, Kelly M

2013-04-01

Despite significant attention to the medical impacts of obesity, often ignored are the negative outcomes that obese children and adults experience as a result of stigma, bias, and discrimination. Obese individuals are frequently stigmatized because of their weight in many domains of daily life. Research spanning several decades has documented consistent weight bias and stigmatization in employment, health care, schools, the media, and interpersonal relationships. For overweight and obese youth, weight stigmatization translates into pervasive victimization, teasing, and bullying. Multiple adverse outcomes are associated with exposure to weight stigmatization, including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, suicidal ideation, poor academic performance, lower physical activity, maladaptive eating behaviors, and avoidance of health care. This review summarizes the nature and extent of weight stigmatization against overweight and obese individuals, as well as the resulting consequences that these experiences create for social, psychological, and physical health for children and adults who are targeted. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Female methamphetamine users: social characteristics and sexual risk behavior.

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Semple, Shirley J; Grant, Igor; Patterson, Thomas L

2004-01-01

The primary objective of this research was to expand our knowledge regarding the personal and social characteristics of female methamphetamine (meth) users, their motivations for using meth, patterns of meth use, medical and social problems associated with meth use, and the relationship between meth use and sexual risk behaviors. The sample consisted of 98 HIV-negative, heterosexually-identified, meth-using females residing in San Diego, California. Female meth users were characterized by personal and social disadvantage, high rates of psychiatric symptomatology, and high levels of sexual risk behavior, including multiple partners, risky partner types (e.g., anonymous sex partners), and high rates of unprotected vaginal and oral sex. Meth use was also associated with the subjective positive experience of sex. These finding suggest that behavioral interventions should be tailored to the social characteristics of female meth users, and program content should reflect the intertwining of women's sexual experience and meth use.

Body weight, perceived weight stigma and mental health among women at the intersection of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status: insights from the modified labelling approach.

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Ciciurkaite, Gabriele; Perry, Brea L

2018-01-01

With increasing rates of obesity in the United States, attention to life chances and psychological consequences associated with weight stigma and weight-based discrimination has also intensified. While research has demonstrated the negative effects of weight-based discrimination on mental health, little is known about whether different social groups are disproportionately vulnerable to these experiences. Drawing on the modified labelling theory, the focus of this paper is to investigate the psychological correlates of body weight and self-perceived weight-based discrimination among American women at the intersection of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES). Analyses use data from the National Health Measurement Study (NHMS), a national multi-stage probability sample of non-institutional, English-speaking adults, ages 35 to 89 in 2005-2006. Our findings demonstrate that the effect of weight-based discrimination on psychological well-being is highly contingent on social status. Specifically, the psychological consequences of discrimination on Hispanic women and women in the lowest household income group is significantly greater relative to White women and women with higher household income, controlling for obesity status and self-rated health. These results suggest that higher social status has a buffering effect of weight stigma on psychological well-being. © 2017 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness.

The social impact of natural language processing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hovy, Dirk; Spruit, Shannon

Research in natural language processing (NLP) used to be mostly performed on anonymous corpora, with the goal of enriching linguistic analysis. Authors were either largely unknown or public figures. As we increasingly use more data from social media, this situation has changed: users are now...... individually identifiable, and the outcome of NLP experiments and applications can have a direct effect on their lives. This change should spawn a debate about the ethical implications of NLP, but until now, the internal discourse in the field has not followed the technological development. This position paper...

SAM: Secure Access of Media Independent Information Service with User Anonymity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li Guangsong

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Seamless handover across different access technologies is very important in the future wireless networks. To optimize vertical handover in heterogeneous networks, IEEE 802.21 standard defines Media Independent Handover (MIH services. The MIH services can be a new target to attackers, which will be the main concern for equipment vendors and service providers. In this paper, we focus specifically on security of Media Independent Information Service (MIIS and present a new access authentication scheme with user anonymity for MIIS. The protocol can be used to establish a secure channel between the mobile node and the information server. Security and performance of the protocol are also analyzed in this paper.

Hip arthroscopy protocol: expert opinions on post-operative weight bearing and return to sports guidelines.

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Rath, Ehud; Sharfman, Zachary T; Paret, Matan; Amar, Eyal; Drexler, Michael; Bonin, Nicolas

2017-01-01

The objectives of this study are to survey the weight-bearing limitation practices and delay for returning to running and impact sports of high volume hip arthroscopy orthopedic surgeons. The study was designed in the form of expert survey questionnaire. Evidence-based data are scares regarding hip arthroscopy post-operative weight-bearing protocols. An international cross-sectional anonymous Internet survey of 26 high-volume hip arthroscopy specialized surgeons was conducted to report their weight-bearing limitations and rehabilitation protocols after various arthroscopic hip procedures. The International Society of Hip Arthroscopy invited this study. The results were examined in the context of supporting literature to inform the studies suggestions. Four surgeons always allow immediate weight bearing and five never offer immediate weight bearing. Seventeen surgeons provide weight bearing depending on the procedures performed: 17 surgeons allowed immediate weight bearing after labral resection, 10 after labral repair and 8 after labral reconstruction. Sixteen surgeons allow immediate weight bearing after psoas tenotomy. Twenty-one respondents restrict weight bearing after microfracture procedures for 3-8 weeks post-operatively. Return to running and impact sports were shorter for labral procedures and bony procedures and longer for cartilaginous and capsular procedures. Marked variability exists in the post-operative weight-bearing practices of hip arthroscopy surgeons. This study suggests that most surgeons allow immediate weight bearing as tolerated after labral resection, acetabular osteoplasty, chondroplasty and psoas tenotomy. For cartilage defect procedures, 6 weeks or more non-weight bearing is suggested depending on the area of the defect and lateral central edge angle. Delayed return to sports activities is suggested after microfracture procedures. The level of evidence was Level V expert opinions.

Social Trust, Social Partner Time and Television Time

Science.gov (United States)

Patulny, Roger

2011-01-01

Social trust is an important phenomenon, but the influence of important time-based measures upon trust has not been examined. Such measures include social contact and anti-social activity, such as television watching, which allows for the co-presence of other people. This paper reports on associations between trust and weighted means of co-present…

Attachment Styles and Changes among Women Members of Overeaters Anonymous Who Have Recovered from Binge-Eating Disorder

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Hertz, Pnina; Addad, Moshe; Ronel, Natti

2012-01-01

In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), the 12-step self-help program for compulsive overeaters, binge eating is regarded as a physical, spiritual, and emotional disorder. Consequently, the program proposes recovery through the adoption of a lifestyle that leads to physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. A qualitative phenomenological study that…

Effects of peer victimization in schools and perceived social support on adolescent well-being.

Science.gov (United States)

Rigby, K

2000-02-01

It has been suggested that the mental health of schoolchildren can be undermined by repeated bullying at school and further exacerbated by having inadequate social support. To evaluate this claim, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was administered anonymously to 845 adolescent schoolchildren attending coeducational secondary schools in South Australia, together with measures of the extent to which each reported being bullied at school and the social support available to them. Multiple regression analyses indicated that for both sexes frequent peer victimization and low social support contributed significantly and independently to relatively poor mental health. Copyright 2000 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.

The Social Strategy Game: Resource Competition within Female Social Networks among Small-scale Forager-Horticulturalists.

Science.gov (United States)

Rucas, Stacey L; Gurven, Michael; Kaplan, Hillard; Winking, Jeffrey

2010-03-10

This paper examines social determinants of resource competition among Tsimane Amerindian women of Bolivia. We introduce a semi-anonymous experiment (the Social Strategy Game) designed to simulate resource competition among women. Information concerning dyadic social relationships and demographic data were collected to identify variables influencing resource competition intensity, as measured by the number of beads one woman took from another. Relationship variables are used to test how the affiliative or competitive aspects of dyads affect the extent of prosociality in the game. Using a mixed-modeling procedure, we find that women compete with those with whom they are quarreling over accusations of meat theft, mate competition, and rumor spreading. They also compete with members of their social network and with those who were designated as cooperative helpers or as close kin. Women take fewer beads from desired friends, neighbors, and from those viewed as enemies. We interpret favoritism toward enemies as resulting from fear of retribution. Our results suggest that social relations among women are multifaceted and often cannot be simplified by exclusive focus on genetic relatedness, physical proximity, or reciprocity. We argue that a complex understanding of cooperation and competition among women may require important contextual information concerning relationship history in addition to typical features of resource ecology.

iDASH: integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing

Science.gov (United States)

Bafna, Vineet; Boxwala, Aziz A; Chapman, Brian E; Chapman, Wendy W; Chaudhuri, Kamalika; Day, Michele E; Farcas, Claudiu; Heintzman, Nathaniel D; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Kim, Hyeoneui; Kim, Jihoon; Matheny, Michael E; Resnic, Frederic S; Vinterbo, Staal A

2011-01-01

iDASH (integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing) is the newest National Center for Biomedical Computing funded by the NIH. It focuses on algorithms and tools for sharing data in a privacy-preserving manner. Foundational privacy technology research performed within iDASH is coupled with innovative engineering for collaborative tool development and data-sharing capabilities in a private Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-certified cloud. Driving Biological Projects, which span different biological levels (from molecules to individuals to populations) and focus on various health conditions, help guide research and development within this Center. Furthermore, training and dissemination efforts connect the Center with its stakeholders and educate data owners and data consumers on how to share and use clinical and biological data. Through these various mechanisms, iDASH implements its goal of providing biomedical and behavioral researchers with access to data, software, and a high-performance computing environment, thus enabling them to generate and test new hypotheses. PMID:22081224

Anonymization of Electronic Medical Records to Support Clinical Analysis

CERN Document Server

Gkoulalas-Divanis, Aris

2013-01-01

Anonymization of Electronic Medical Records to Support Clinical Analysis closely examines the privacy threats that may arise from medical data sharing, and surveys the state-of-the-art methods developed to safeguard data against these threats. To motivate the need for computational methods, the book first explores the main challenges facing the privacy-protection of medical data using the existing policies, practices and regulations. Then, it takes an in-depth look at the popular computational privacy-preserving methods that have been developed for demographic, clinical and genomic data sharing, and closely analyzes the privacy principles behind these methods, as well as the optimization and algorithmic strategies that they employ. Finally, through a series of in-depth case studies that highlight data from the US Census as well as the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the book outlines a new, innovative class of privacy-preserving methods designed to ensure the integrity of transferred medical data for su...

User Identification Framework in Social Network Services Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brijesh BAKARIYA

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Social Network Service is a one of the service where people may communicate with one an-other; and may also exchange messages even of any type of audio or video communication. Social Network Service as name suggests a type of network. Such type of web application plays a dominant role in internet technology. In such type of online community, people may share their common interest. Facebook LinkedIn, orkut and many more are the Social Network Service and it is good medium of making link with people having unique or common interest and goals. But the problem of privacy protection is a big issue in today’s world. As social networking sites allows anonymous users to share information of other stuffs. Due to which cybercrime is also increasing to a rapid extent. In this article we preprocessed the web log data of Social Network Services and assemble that data on the basis of image file format like jpg, jpeg, gif, png, bmp etc. and also propose a framework for victim’s identification.

Parents' perceptions of their children's weight, eating habits, and physical activities at home and at school.

Science.gov (United States)

Jaballas, Elvira; Clark-Ott, Dorothy; Clasen, Carla; Stolfi, Adrienne; Urban, Marianne

2011-01-01

Parental perceptions of their young children's weight and habits may play an important role in determining whether children develop and maintain healthy lifestyles. This study was conducted to determine perceptions of parents of third-grade children in an urban school setting regarding their children's weight, eating habits, and physical activities. Parents anonymously completed surveys about their child's weight, eating habits, and daily activities. The survey also asked about how schools could encourage healthy eating and increased physical activity. Overall, 26% of the parents perceived their child to be overweight and expressed concern, but 40% of these parents believed that overweight is a condition that will be outgrown. Parents who reported eating more than eight meals per week with their child were less likely to report their child as overweight and more likely to believe that their child's physical activity level was appropriate. Most parents of third-grade students demonstrated concern regarding their child's weight and perceive obesity as a problem. Parents support school interventions such as nutrition education and fitness classes. Copyright © 2011 National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Weight Gain Prevention for College Freshmen: Comparing Two Social Cognitive Theory-Based Interventions with and without Explicit Self-Regulation Training

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Elizabeth A. Dennis

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The college transition represents a critical period for maintaining a healthy weight, yet intervention participation and retention represent significant challenges. The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the preliminary efficacy and acceptability of two interventions to prevent freshman weight gain. One intervention provided opportunities to improve outcome expectations and self-efficacy within a social cognitive theory framework (SCT, while the other targeted the same variables but focused on explicit training in self-regulation skills (SCTSR. Methods. Freshmen (n=45 aged >18 years were randomized to a 14-week intervention, SCT or SCTSR; both included online modules and in-class meetings. Of the 45 students randomized, 5 withdrew before the classes began and 39 completed pre- and posttesting. Primary outcomes included body weight/composition, health behaviors, and program acceptability. Analyses included independent sample t-tests, repeated measures ANOVA, and bivariate correlational analyses. Results. Body weight increased over the 14-week period, but there was no group difference. Percent body fat increased in SCTSR but not SCT (mean difference: SCTSR, +1.63 ± 0.52%; SCT, −0.25 ± 0.45%; P=0.01. Class attendance was 100% (SCTSR and 98% (SCT; SCTSR students (>50% remarked that the online tracking required “too much time.” Conclusions. The intervention was well received, although there were no improvements in weight outcomes.

Social cost of pathological gambling.

Science.gov (United States)

Ladouceur, R; Boisvert, J M; Pépin, M; Loranger, M; Sylvain, C

1994-12-01

Pathological gambling creates enormous problems for the afflicted individuals, their families, employers, and society, and has numerous disastrous financial consequences. The present study evaluates the financial burdens of pathological gambling by questioning pathological gamblers in treatment in Gamblers Anonymous (n=60; 56 males, 4 females; mean age = 40 years old) about personal debts, loss of productivity at work, illegal activities, medical costs and the presence of other dependencies. Results show that important debts, loss of productivity at work and legal problems are associated with pathological gambling. Discussion is formulated in terms of the social cost of adopting a liberal attitude toward the legalization of various gambling activities.

Assessing the Value of Online Learning and Social Media in Pharmacy Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamilton, Leslie A; Franks, Andrea; Heidel, R Eric; McDonough, Sharon L K; Suda, Katie J

2016-08-25

Objective. To assess student preferences regarding online learning and technology and to evaluate student pharmacists' social media use for educational purposes. Methods. An anonymous 36-question online survey was administered to third-year student pharmacists enrolled in the Drug Information and Clinical Literature Evaluation course. Results. Four hundred thirty-one students completed the survey, yielding a 96% response rate. The majority of students used technology for academic activities, with 90% using smart phones and 91% using laptop computers. Fifty-eight percent of students also used social networking websites to communicate with classmates. Conclusion. Pharmacy students frequently use social media and some online learning methods, which could be a valuable avenue for delivering or supplementing pharmacy curricula. The potential role of social media and online learning in pharmacy education needs to be further explored.

Storming the servers: a social psychological analysis of the First Internet War.

Science.gov (United States)

Guadagno, Rosanna E; Cialdini, Robert B; Evron, Gadi

2010-08-01

In April 2007, the First Internet War began. Owing to the relocation of a World War II-era Soviet war memorial in Estonia, angry protestors, primarily of Russian descent, engaged in a month-long series of coordinated online attacks on Estonia's Internet infrastructure that disabled it for several days. We analyze this real-world event from a social psychological perspective. Specifically, we review the details surrounding the event and examine why protest manifested in this form of online attack and discuss how it was successfully orchestrated from a framework provided by social psychology, the science of human social interaction. We argue that the psychological principles of loss, relative anonymity of online interaction, group membership and adherence to group norms, social validation, and contagion all contributed to the success of the attacks.

Centrality measures for immunization of weighted networks

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Mohammad Khansari

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Effective immunization of individual communities with minimal cost in vaccination has made great discussion surrounding the realm of complex networks. Meanwhile, proper realization of relationship among people in society and applying it to social networks brings about substantial improvements in immunization. Accordingly, weighted graph in which link weights represent the intensity and intimacy of relationships is an acceptable approach. In this work we employ weighted graphs and a wide variety of weighted centrality measures to distinguish important individuals in contagion of diseases. Furthermore, we propose new centrality measures for weighted networks. Our experimental results show that Radiality-Degree centrality is satisfying for weighted BA networks. Additionally, PageRank-Degree and Radiality-Degree centralities showmoreacceptable performance in targeted immunization of weighted networks.

Domestic violence in a UK abortion clinic: anonymous cross-sectional prevalence survey.

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Motta, Silvia; Penn-Kekana, Loveday; Bewley, Susan

2015-04-01

To measure the prevalence of domestic violence (DV) experienced by women seeking termination of pregnancy (TOP) in a UK abortion clinic. A cross-sectional anonymous questionnaire survey of all women aged over 16 years accessing a TOP clinic in inner London between 20 May 2012 and 2 July 2012. The main outcome measures were: distribution of questionnaires, response rate, lifetime prevalence of abuse, past-year prevalence of physical and sexual abuse, prevalence of physical abuse during current pregnancy, relationship of lifetime abuse to number of terminations, and receptivity to DV services. Questionnaires were distributed to 46% (383/828) of women accessing the clinic. Response rate was 50% (190/383). Lifetime prevalence of abuse was 16%. Past-year prevalence of physical abuse was 11% and sexual abuse was 4%. Prevalence of physical abuse during the current pregnancy was 4%. Prevalence of lifetime abuse was lower in women having a first termination (12%) versus one (20%) or two or more previous terminations (24%), although this was not statistically significant (p=0.192). The majority (75%) of participants expressing an opinion on the possibility of having a support service for DV in the abortion clinic setting were positive, unrelated to their personal experience, but some concerns were raised about implementation. In order to provide effective support for women, services require a needs assessment of their local population. Asking women presenting for abortion about DV, even anonymously, is challenging but feasible. Future work should be directed to women's unmet safety needs. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

What affects your MS? Responses to an anonymous, Internet-based epidemiological survey.

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Simmons, Rex D; Ponsonby, Anne-Louise; van der Mei, Ingrid A F; Sheridan, Peter

2004-04-01

Evolving information technology has raised the possibility of new methods of data collection in multiple sclerosis (MS) research. An anonymous, self-report, Internet-based survey was developed, which asked people with MS their opinion on how various extrinsic factors affected their condition. From September 2001 to July 2002, a total of 2529 people completed the questionnaire. The demographic and clinical profiles of the anonymous respondents indicated that most were likely to have MS. Common factors reported as beneficial were cannabis, cold baths, meditation and dietary factors. Common adverse factors reported were high stress, exposure to high temperatures and viral infections. There was an increasing report of high temperatures as being adverse with increasing respondent age (test for trend, P < 0.001). The adverse report of high temperatures correlated significantly with the report of strong sunlight apparently making MS worse (r = 0.35, P < 0.0001). In Australia, high temperatures were more likely to be reported as adverse in warmer, lower latitude regions. The association between strong sunlight as adverse and age or region did not persist after adjustment for high temperatures. Thus, this apparent adverse factor appeared to relate to solar heat, not solar light. People with MS may risk vitamin D deficiency because of sun avoidance due to heat-related fatigue or intolerance. This is of clinical significance not only for bone health but because vitamin D may have beneficial immunomodulatory properties. The present study provides new information from people with MS on factors that may influence symptoms or clinical course. This information will now be used in the design of formal epidemiological cohort studies.

The effect of friend selection on social influences in obesity.

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Trogdon, Justin G; Allaire, Benjamin T

2014-12-01

We present an agent-based model of weight choice and peer selection that simulates the effect of peer selection on social multipliers for weight loss interventions. The model generates social clustering around weight through two mechanisms: a causal link from others' weight to an individual's weight and the propensity to select peers based on weight. We simulated weight loss interventions and tried to identify intervention targets that maximized the spillover of weight loss from intervention participants to nonparticipants. Social multipliers increase with the number of intervention participants' friends. For example, when friend selection was based on a variable exogenous to weight, the weight lost among non-participants increased by 23% (14.3lb vs. 11.6lb) when targeting the most popular obese. Holding constant the number of participants' friends, multipliers increase with increased weight clustering due to selection, up to a point. For example, among the most popular obese, social multipliers when matching on a characteristic correlated with weight (1.189) were higher than when matching on the exogenous characteristic (1.168) and when matching on weight (1.180). Increased weight clustering also implies more obese "friends of friends" of participants, who reduce social multipliers. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Identity Management and Mental Health Discourse in Social Media.

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Pavalanathan, Umashanthi; De Choudhury, Munmun

2015-05-01

Social media is increasingly being adopted in health discourse. We examine the role played by identity in supporting discourse on socially stigmatized conditions. Specifically, we focus on mental health communities on reddit. We investigate the characteristics of mental health discourse manifested through reddit's characteristic 'throwaway' accounts, which are used as proxies of anonymity. For the purpose, we propose affective, cognitive, social, and linguistic style measures, drawing from literature in psychology. We observe that mental health discourse from throwaways is considerably disinhibiting and exhibits increased negativity, cognitive bias and self-attentional focus, and lowered self-esteem. Throwaways also seem to be six times more prevalent as an identity choice on mental health forums, compared to other reddit communities. We discuss the implications of our work in guiding mental health interventions, and in the design of online communities that can better cater to the needs of vulnerable populations. We conclude with thoughts on the role of identity manifestation on social media in behavioral therapy.

Preserving Smart Objects Privacy through Anonymous and Accountable Access Control for a M2M-Enabled Internet of Things

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Hernández-Ramos, José L.; Bernabe, Jorge Bernal; Moreno, M. Victoria; Skarmeta, Antonio F.

2015-01-01

As we get into the Internet of Things era, security and privacy concerns remain as the main obstacles in the development of innovative and valuable services to be exploited by society. Given the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) nature of these emerging scenarios, the application of current privacy-friendly technologies needs to be reconsidered and adapted to be deployed in such global ecosystem. This work proposes different privacy-preserving mechanisms through the application of anonymous credential systems and certificateless public key cryptography. The resulting alternatives are intended to enable an anonymous and accountable access control approach to be deployed on large-scale scenarios, such as Smart Cities. Furthermore, the proposed mechanisms have been deployed on constrained devices, in order to assess their suitability for a secure and privacy-preserving M2M-enabled Internet of Things. PMID:26140349

Preserving Smart Objects Privacy through Anonymous and Accountable Access Control for a M2M-Enabled Internet of Things