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In recent years many people have built Personal Assistant Agents, Information Agents and the like, and have simply added them to the operating system as auxiliary applications, without regard to architecture. This thesis argues that an agent architecture, one designed as a sophisticated representation of an individual user, should be embedded deep in the device system software, with at least equal status to the GUI – the graphical user interface. A sophisticated model of the user is then built, drawing upon contemporary Analytical Psychology – the Psychology of Subselves. The Shadowboard Agent architecture is then built upon that user model, drawing both structural and computational implications from the underlying psychology. An XML DTD file named Shadowboard.dtd is declared as a practical manifestation of the semantics of Shadowboard. An implementation of the Shadowboard system is mapped out, via a planned conversion of two existing integrated systems: SlimWinX, an event-driven GUI system; and XSpaces, an object-oriented tuplespace system with Blackboard-like features. The decision making mechanism passes logic terms and contraints between the various sub-agent components (some of which take on the role of Constraint Solvers), giving this agent system some characteristics of a Generalised Constraint Solver. A Shadowboard agent (built using the system) consists of a central controlling autonomous agent named the Aware Ego Agent, and any number of sub-agents, which collectively form an integrated but singular whole agent modelled on the user called the Digital Self. One such whole-agent is defined in a file named DigitalSelf.xml – which conforms to the schema in Shadowboard.dtd - which offers a comprehensive and generic representation of a user’s stance in a 24x7 network, in particular - the Internet. Numerous types of Shadowboard sub-agents are declared.

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La mutualisation et l'externalisation de données concernent de nombreux domaines y compris celui de la santé. Au-delà de la réduction des coûts de maintenance, l'intérêt est d'améliorer la prise en charge des patients par le déploiement d'outils d'aide au diagnostic fondés sur la réutilisation des données. Dans un tel environnement, la sécurité des données (confidentialité, intégrité et traçabilité) est un enjeu majeur. C'est dans ce contexte que s'inscrivent ces travaux de thèse. Ils concernent en particulier la sécurisation des techniques de recherche d'images par le contenu (CBIR) et de « machine learning » qui sont au c'ur des systèmes d'aide au diagnostic. Ces techniques permettent de trouver des images semblables à une image requête non encore interprétée. L'objectif est de définir des approches capables d'exploiter des données externalisées et sécurisées, et de permettre à un « cloud » de fournir une aide au diagnostic. Plusieurs mécanismes permettent le traitement de données chiffrées, mais la plupart sont dépendants d'interactions entre différentes entités (l'utilisateur, le cloud voire un tiers de confiance) et doivent être combinés judicieusement de manière à ne pas laisser fuir d'information lors d'un traitement.Au cours de ces trois années de thèse, nous nous sommes dans un premier temps intéressés à la sécurisation à l'aide du chiffrement homomorphe, d'un système de CBIR externalisé sous la contrainte d'aucune interaction entre le fournisseur de service et l'utilisateur. Dans un second temps, nous avons développé une approche de « Machine Learning » sécurisée fondée sur le perceptron multicouches, dont la phase d'apprentissage peut être externalisée de manière sûre, l'enjeu étant d'assurer la convergence de cette dernière. L'ensemble des données et des paramètres du modèle sont chiffrés. Du fait que ces systèmes d'aides doivent exploiter des informations issues de plusieurs sources, chacune externalisant ses données chiffrées sous sa propre clef, nous nous sommes intéressés au problème du partage de données chiffrées. Un problème traité par les schémas de « Proxy Re-Encryption » (PRE). Dans ce contexte, nous avons proposé le premier schéma PRE qui permet à la fois le partage et le traitement des données chiffrées. Nous avons également travaillé sur un schéma de tatouage de données chiffrées pour tracer et vérifier l'intégrité des données dans cet environnement partagé. Le message tatoué dans le chiffré est accessible que l'image soit ou non chiffrée et offre plusieurs services de sécurité fondés sur le tatouage. / Cloud computing has emerged as a successful paradigm allowing individuals and companies to store and process large amounts of data without a need to purchase and maintain their own networks and computer systems. In healthcare for example, different initiatives aim at sharing medical images and Personal Health Records (PHR) in between health professionals or hospitals with the help of the cloud. In such an environment, data security (confidentiality, integrity and traceability) is a major issue. In this context that these thesis works, it concerns in particular the securing of Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) techniques and machine learning (ML) which are at the heart of diagnostic decision support systems. These techniques make it possible to find similar images to an image not yet interpreted. The goal is to define approaches that can exploit secure externalized data and enable a cloud to provide a diagnostic support. Several mechanisms allow the processing of encrypted data, but most are dependent on interactions between different entities (the user, the cloud or a trusted third party) and must be combined judiciously so as to not leak information. During these three years of thesis, we initially focused on securing an outsourced CBIR system under the constraint of no interaction between the users and the service provider (cloud). In a second step, we have developed a secure machine learning approach based on multilayer perceptron (MLP), whose learning phase can be outsourced in a secure way, the challenge being to ensure the convergence of the MLP. All the data and parameters of the model are encrypted using homomorphic encryption. Because these systems need to use information from multiple sources, each of which outsources its encrypted data under its own key, we are interested in the problem of sharing encrypted data. A problem known by the "Proxy Re-Encryption" (PRE) schemes. In this context, we have proposed the first PRE scheme that allows both the sharing and the processing of encrypted data. We also worked on watermarking scheme over encrypted data in order to trace and verify the integrity of data in this shared environment. The embedded message is accessible whether or not the image is encrypted and provides several services.

In today’s society, serious organizations need protection against both internal and external attacks. There are many different technologies available that organizations can incorporate into their organization in order to enhance security for their networking applications. Unfortunately, security is way to often considered as an afterthought and therefore implemented as an external part of the applications. This is usually performed by introducing general security models and technologies. However, an already developed, well structured and considered security approach – with proper implementation of security services and mechanisms – different security models can be used to apply security within the security perimeter of an organization. It can range from built into the application to the edge of a private network, e.g. an appliance. No matter the choice, the involved people must possess security expertise to deploy the proposed security models in this paper, that have the soul purpose to secure applications. By using the Recommendation X.800 as a comparison framework, the proposed models will be analyzed in detail and evaluated of how they provide the security services concerned in X.800. By reasoning about what security services that ought to be implemented in order to prevent or detect diverse security attacks, the organization needs to carry out a security plan and have a common understanding of the defined security policies. An interesting finding during our work was that, using a methodology that leads to low KLOC-values results in high security, though low KLOC-values and high security go hand-in-hand.

Many civil wars are illustrative of wider international tensions and connections that transcend state borders. States often intervene to influence the trajectory and outcome of civil conflicts by providing external support to warring parties. This assistance ranges from direct military intervention to the provision of weapons, training, funds, safe havens, intelligence, logistics and other critical resources. This dissertation contains four individual essays that each seeks to advance our knowledge of state support to rebel movements. The first essays (I and II) add to our understanding of how external state support influences conflict dynamics while the latter (III and IV) begin to unpack the political decision-making process behind decisions that alter the original support commitment. Essay I evaluates whether state support to rebels increases the probability of civil war negotiations being initiated. The findings question a widespread belief among policymakers that support can foster negotiations. Essay II explores if external support influences the risk of conflict recurrence. It finds that state support to rebels can increase the risk of conflict recurrence in the short-term while there is no equivalent effect of support provided to governments. Essay III is the first global analysis of support termination and it thereby opens up an entirely new research field. The results suggest that the causes related to the initiation of support and its termination are largely distinct while the transition from the Cold War and the absence of ethnic kinship ties offer some insights into when states are more likely to terminate support. Essay IV unpacks the political decision-making process of the United States’ support to the armed opposition in Nicaragua in the 1980s and in Syria in the 2010s. The results indicate that adverse feedback functions as a trigger for increasing previous commitments as long as policy failure can be attributed to external actors, while reduced support is often a result of attributing failure to the state sponsor’s own actions. Taken together, the essays make significant contributions to advance our understanding of biased third-party interventions, conflict recurrence, civil war negotiations, foreign policy decision-making and state sponsorship of terrorism.

The literature suggests that informed consent documents (ICDs) are not well understood by research participants. The patient decision aid model may suggest improvements for the informed consent process, particularly in the critical care setting (ICU) because of patient capacity issues. Our goal was to evaluate the extent to which existing ICDs used in ICU research adhere to standards and recommendations for high quality informed consent. Eighteen items from recommendations specific to ICU trials were added to a previously developed ICD evaluation tool. A sample of ICU trials was identified from clinicaltrials.gov database and the investigators contacted for their trial ICD. Conformity to the recommendations was variable. Some information are found routinely in consent documents for critical care research and some are not. Efforts should aim to establish tools for measuring decision quality in the ICU with the goal of facilitating and helping patients and surrogates work through trial participation decisions.

Introduction : La transition des soins pédiatriques aux soins pour adultes peut être difficile. Si elle est réalisée de façon sous-optimale, cela peut entraîner de graves conséquences. Afin de mesurer la préparation à la transition de patients adolescents et jeunes adultes (AJA), le Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (TRAQ) a été développé. Les objectifs de l’étude sont de 1) documenter les propriétés psychométriques de la version française du TRAQ (TRAQ-FR), 2) évaluer le degré d’accord sur le TRAQ-FR entre les AJA et leurs aidants naturels et 3) identifier les prédicteurs de la préparation à la transition. Méthodologie : Des AJA francophones (n=175) et leurs aidants naturels (n=168) ont été recrutés dans cinq cliniques d’un hôpital tertiaire canadien et ont complété le TRAQ-FR, le Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 (PedsQLTM 4.0) et un questionnaire sociodémographique. La validité du TRAQ-FR a été déterminée en réalisant des analyses factorielles confirmatoires. Les accords et différences ont été mesurés en calculant des corrélations intra-classe et des tests-t pour échantillons appariés. Des prédicteurs de la préparation à la transition ont été identifiés par des régressions multivariées. Résultats : Le modèle à cinq facteurs du TRAQ est soutenu par les données et l’échelle globale du TRAQ-FR montre une bonne cohérence interne pour les scores des AJA et des aidants naturels (a=.85-.87). Le degré d’accord absolu sur l’échelle globale du TRAQ-FR est bon entre les informants (ICC=.80; d=.25), les AJA rapportant un score plus élevé que leurs aidants naturels. L’âge et le sexe des AJA sont des prédicteurs de la préparation à la transition. Conclusion : Le TRAQ-FR a de bonnes propriétés psychométriques lorsqu’il est complété par les AJA et leurs aidants naturels. Des études futures devraient explorer la validité prédictive et l’utilisation clinique du TRAQ-FR. / Background: Transitioning from pediatric to adult healthcare can be challenging and lead to severe consequences if done suboptimally. The Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (TRAQ) was developed to assess adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients’ transition readiness. In this study, we aimed to 1) document the psychometric properties of the French-language version of the TRAQ (TRAQ-FR), 2) assess agreements and discrepancies between AYA patients’ and their primary caregivers’ TRAQ-FR scores, and 3) identify transition readiness contributors. Methods: French-speaking AYA patients (n=175) and primary caregivers (n=168) were recruited from five clinics in a tertiary Canadian hospital and asked to complete the TRAQ-FR, the Pediatric Quality of Life InventoryTM 4.0 (PedsQLTM 4.0), and a sociodemographic questionnaire. The validity of the TRAQ-FR was assessed using confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). Agreements and discrepancies were evaluated using intra-class correlation coefficients and paired-sample t-tests. Contributors of transition readiness were identified using regression analyses. Results: The five-factor model of the TRAQ was supported, with the TRAQ-FR global scale showing good internal consistency for both AYA patients’ and primary caregivers’ scores (a=.85- .87). AYA patients and primary caregivers showed good absolute agreement on the TRAQ-FR global scale with AYA patients scoring higher than primary caregivers (ICC=.80; d=.25). AYA patients’ age and sex were found to be contributors of transition readiness. Conclusions: The TRAQ-FR was found to have good psychometric properties when completed by both AYA patients and primary caregivers. Additional research is needed to explore the predictive validity and clinical use of the TRAQ-FR.

This Master’s thesis deals in detail with the SIP protocol – a method of communication between two entities, various types of transmitted messages and their content. Few SIP libraries are introduced and two of them are used for development of an application for audio/video conference-calls. Compilation of OPAL and PTlib libraries for Windows 7 Professional (64bit) is described, and problems resulting from lack of information provided by authors. New improved “how to build” is presented. At the end, paper focuses on several ways of development of mentioned application.

This essay will address the topic of child abuse through healthcare interventions, ormore precisely medical child abuse - which is also called Münchausen syndrome byproxy. A social problem that is quite unusual, and therefore creates complexity. Witha quantitative method, the essay is based on a web-based survey, which social workerson the Swedish social services at the children- and family units in Småland haveresponded to. The questions in the survey processes the social workers' knowledgeand preparedness which will be analyzed by their discretionary space and reasoning.These themes are also linked to Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy which isused to analyze the empirical data of the study. The results from the essay are analyzedand tested through the statistics program SPSS. The results and analysis show forinstance that the longer the social workers have been working at their units and insocial work in general, the more knowledge they considered themselves to have. Theyalso possessed a higher readiness the longer they worked at the unit. They are morerecon with the term “Münchausen by proxy” than “Medical child abuse”. Regarding guidelines and legislation, they feel uncertain, which we connect to the knowledge-gaps that comes with the social problem. Medical child abuse in the Swedish social services is quite unexplored and with this essay we want to contribute to a betterresearch, to help the children who are victims of medical child abuse.