Balancing Protection and Quality in Big Data Analytics Pipelines.

Existing data engine implementations do not properly manage the conflict between the need of protecting and sharing data, which is hampering the spread of big data applications and limiting their impact. These two requirements have often been studied and defined independently, leading to a conceptual and technological misalignment. This article presents the architecture and technical implementation of a data engine addressing this conflict by integrating a new governance solution based on access control within a big data analytics pipeline. Our data engine enriches traditional components for data governance with an access control system that enforces access to data in a big data environment based on data transformations. Data are then used along the pipeline only after sanitization, protecting sensitive attributes before their usage, in an effort to facilitate the balance between protection and quality. The solution was tested in a real-world smart city scenario using the data of the Oslo city transportation system. Specifically, we compared the different predictive models trained with the data views obtained by applying the secure transformations required by different user roles to the same data set. The results show that the predictive models, built on data manipulated according to access control policies, are still effective.

Short-term outcomes with the Ajust™ system: a new single incision sling for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence.

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the minimally invasive Ajust™ system in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence. METHODS: This was a prospective multicentre study. All patients with primary urodynamic stress urinary incontinence were prospectively selected to receive the Ajust™ procedure. The International Consultation on Incontinence-Short Form (ICI-SF), Women Irritative Prostate Symptoms Score (W-IPSS), PGI-S, and PGI-I questionnaires were used to evaluate the impact of incontinence and voiding dysfunction on QoL and to measure patient's perception of incontinence severity and improvement. RESULTS: From January 2009 to October 2009, 111 consecutive subjects were enrolled in the study. At 6 months, 102 were available for outcomes analysis. The subjective and objective cure rates were 85.7% and 91.4%, respectively. The ICI-SF and W-IPSS questionnaires showed a statistical significant improvement in symptom scores. CONCLUSIONS: In the short-term follow-up, the Ajust™ system was effective in restoring continence in more than 85% of subjects with a highly significant improvement in QoL.

A proposal for a new scoring system to evaluate pelvic masses: Pelvic Masses Score (PMS).

OBJECTIVES: Ovarian cancer is the fourth leading cause of death among neoplastic diseases in women. In spite of constant improvement in surgical, chemotherapeutic and immunologic techniques, which can induce long remission periods, the five-year survival rate has not really changed over the past thirty years. We tried to create a sonographic scoring system, called PMS, that could be helpful in diagnosis of pelvic masses. STUDY DESIGN: The three most commonly used and validated indexes--Sassone score, Ovarian Tumor Index (OTI), and Risk of Malignancy Index 3 (RMI3)--were applied to a population of 102 women with adnexal masses. We developed a new scoring system, named Pelvic Masses Score (PMS), that takes into account the ultrasound morphological pattern, the Doppler flowmetry of the pelvic mass, the CA125 serum level and the menopausal status. We then applied this scoring system to a population of 160 women for validation of the score. RESULTS: Statistical analysis of the data obtained from the new scoring system reveals that sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV) are higher than in the case of data separately derived from the Sassone score, OTI index or RMI index. CONCLUSIONS: Our preliminary data showed good results in term of sensitivity, specify and predictive values compared to other old scoring systems. A larger prospective study is required to confirm these preliminary data. The number of cases will be expanded to permit a better evaluation of PMS.