Policies are the corner stones of today’s computer systems. They define secure states and safe operations. A common problem with policies is that their enforcement is often in conflict with user privacy. In order to check the satisfiability of a policy, a server usually needs to collect from a client some information which may be private. In this work we introduce the notion of secure set-based...

CONTEXT Grades in clinical clerkships are typically based on a combination of clinical assessments from teachers, as well as results of more reliable (but perhaps less valid) scores on standardised tests of knowledge. It is not clear how these scores are combined in practice to yield a final summative grade. METHODS Our subjects were 83 students who rotated through five clinical clerkships du...

We introduce an enhanced information-flow analysis for tracking the amount of confidential data that is possibly released to third parties by a mobile application. The main novelty of our solution is that it can explicitly keep track of the footprint of data sources in the expressions formed and manipulated by the program, as well as of transformations over them, yielding a lazy approach with f...

Many access control policy languages, e.g., XACML, allow a policy to contain multiple sub-policies, and the result of the policy on a request is determined by combining the results of the sub-policies according to some policy combining algorithms (PCAs). Existing access control policy languages, however, do not provide a formal language for specifying PCAs. As a result, it is difficult to exten...

Until recently few jurisdictions have allowed arbitration of family law disputes, considering such arbitration to be contrary to public policy. But policies favouring private ordering, combined with pressures on family courts have encouraged reconsideration of the policy issues. This is notably true in common law jurisdictions. Similar developments in civil law jurisdictions are inhibited by th...

Australia has an evolving national cancer control agenda. In this paper, we review the history and development of cancer control policies in Australia up to the end of 2005, and discuss the principal publications produced by both government and non-government groups which have given rise to cancer control recommendations, goals and targets. These cancer control plans have arisen in response to ...

We used spatial simulation models to evaluate how current and two alternative policies might affect potential biodiversity over 100 years in the Coast Ranges Physiographic Province of Oregon. This 2.3-million-ha province is characterized by a diversity of public and private forest owners, and a wide range of forest policy and management objectives. We evaluated habitat availability for seven fo...

BACKGROUND Information on measles vaccine effectiveness (VE) is critical to help inform policies for future global measles control goals. METHODS We reviewed results of VE studies published during 1960-2010. RESULTS Seventy papers with 135 VE point estimates were identified. For a single dose of vaccine administered at 9-11 months of age and ≥12 months, the median VE was 77.0% (interquartil...

In the aftermath of the Ebola crisis and with renewed attention to resilient health systems, the process of improving approaches of global health actors to health systems strengthening is of great relevance. Despite the increased amount of attention paid to health systems strengthening, there is no standard definition of this concept among global health actors. Germany is no exception. Though t...

BACKGROUND Transport and its links to health and health inequalities suggest that it is important to assess both the direct and unintended indirect health and related impacts of transport initiatives and policies. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) provides a framework to assess the possible health impacts of interventions such as transport. Policymakers and practitioners need access to well conduc...