SAMGRID: Security Authorization and Monitoring Module Based on SealedGRID Platform.

IoT devices present an ever-growing domain with multiple applicability. This technology has favored and still favors many areas by creating critical infrastructures that are as profitable as possible. This paper presents a hierarchical architecture composed of different licensing entities that manage access to different resources within a network infrastructure. They are conducted on the basis of well-drawn policy rules. At the same time, the security side of these resources is also placed through a context awareness module. Together with this technology, IoT is used and Blockchain is enabled (for network consolidation, as well as the transparency with which to monitor the platform). The ultimate goal is to implement a secure and scalable security platform for the Smart Grid. The paper presents the work undertaken in the SealedGRID project and the steps taken for implementing security policies specifically tailored to the Smart Grid, based on advanced concepts such as Opinion Dynamics and Smart Grid-related Attribute-based Access Control.

Level of education, background and clinical stage as prognostic factors according to RMST function in patients with early and locally advanced breast cancer: a single institution experience from Romania.

Background and aims: Our aim is to examine the relationship between the level of education, background, tumor size and lymph node status on the treatment outcome in a group of patients with early and locally advanced breast cancer (BC) by using the restricted mean survival time (RMST), which summarizes treatment effects in terms of event-free time over a fixed period of time. Methods: We evaluated the prognostic values in 143 patients treated for early BC at Elias University Emergency Hospital, Bucharest, Romania and followed up for a maximum of 36 months. The protocol was amended to include the levels of education (gymnasium, high school, or university), the background (urban or rural) and the clinical stage (primary tumor (T) and regional nodes (N)). The methodology consisted in using a Kaplan-Meier analysis and RMST for the entire sample and Cox regression, for the variables with statistical influence. The principal endpoints of the study were overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS). Results: The level of education had impact both on RMST OS (35.30 vs. 26.70) and death HR (hazard ratio) in the group of patients with general school level, compared with those with graduated university. In this study, the urban or rural background did not impact the outcome, probably because in this study we included predominantly patients from urban areas (83%). Although clinical tumor size measurements did not impact the outcome, the clinical staged lymph node influenced both OS (p=0.0500) and PFS (p=0.0006) for the patients with palpable or imaging proof of lymph node involvement of station 2 or 3. Conclusions: RMST provides an intuitive and explicit way to express the effect of those risk factors on OS and PFS in a cohort of early breast cancer patients. Low level of education and high-grade clinical lymph node status negatively influences the outcome of this cohort of BC patients.

SealedGRID: Secure and Interoperable Platform for Smart GRID Applications.

Recent advancements in information and communication technologies (ICT) have improved the power grid, leading to what is known as the smart grid, which, as part of a critical economic and social infrastructure, is vulnerable to security threats from the use of ICT and new emerging vulnerabilities and privacy issues. Access control is a fundamental element of a security infrastructure, and security is based on the principles of less privilege, zero-trust, and segregation of duties. This work addresses how access control can be applied without disrupting the power grid's functioning while also properly maintaining the security, scalability, and interoperability of the smart grid. The authentication in the platform presumes digital certificates using a web of trust. This paper presents the findings of the SealedGRID project, and the steps taken for implementing Attribute-based access control policies specifically customized to the smart grid. The outcome is to develop a novel, hierarchical architecture composed of different licensing entities that manages access to resources within the network infrastructure. They are based on well-drawn policy rules and the security side of these resources is placed through a context awareness module. Together with this technology, the IoT is used with Big Data (facilitating easy handling of large databases). Another goal of this paper is to present implementation and evaluations details of a secure and scalable security platform for the smart grid.

Correlation between Androgen Receptor Expression and Immunohistochemistry Type as Prognostic Factors in a Cohort of Breast Cancer Patients: Result from a Single-Center, Cross Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND: We investigated the correlation between the androgen receptor (AR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) as a prognostic factor in breast cancer (BC). AR is expressed in 60-80% of BC. METHODS: We evaluated the prognostic values of AR expression among 143 patients with BC for 36 months. The protocol was amended to measure androgen, estrogen and progesterone receptor expression by IHC and the percentage of hormone positive nuclei was quantified. We determined and quantified the Her2/neu status using IHC and in situ hybridization. The methodology consisted in using a Kaplan-Meier analysis and restricted mean survival time up to 36 months. The principal endpoints of the study were overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS). RESULTS: 57% of patients (n = 82) from our group had AR+ (≥ 1%). Patients with AR+ had better OS, 35.50 vs. 33.40 months, with p = 0.027. Moreover, PFS was prolonged for patients AR+, 32.60 vs. 30.50 months, with p = 0.38. Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients had lower OS and no difference was observed for PFS. CONCLUSIONS: Both OS and PFS were favorably influenced by the presence of AR. TNBC had worse outcomes compared with patients with hormonal or/and Her 2/neu positive disease in terms of OS.

Histological Aspects and Quantitative Assessment of Ki67 as Prognostic Factors in Breast Cancer Patients: Result from a Single-Center, Cross Sectional Study.

Background and objectives: Our aim is to explore the relationship between the levels of protein encoded by Ki67 and the histopathological aspects regarding the overall survival and progression-free survival in a single university center. A secondary objective was to examine other factors that can influence these endpoints. New approaches to the prognostic assessment of breast cancer have come from molecular profiling studies. Ki67 is a nuclear protein associated with cell proliferation. Together with the histological type and tumor grade, it is used to appreciate the aggressiveness of the breast tumors. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective single-institution study, at Elias University Emergency Hospital, Bucharest, Romania, in which we enrolled women with stage I to III breast cancer. The protocol was amended to include the immunohistochemistry determination of Ki67 and the histological aspects. The methodology consisted in using a Kaplan-Meier analysis for the entire sample and restricted mean survival time up to 36 months. Results: Both lower Ki67 and low tumor grade are associated with better prognosis in terms of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for our patients' cohort. In our group, the histological type did not impact the time to progression or survival. Conclusions: Both overall survival and progression-free survival may be influenced by the higher value of Ki67 and less differentiated tumors. Further studies are needed in order to establish if the histologic type may impact breast cancer prognostic, probably together with other histologic and molecular markers.

Decision Support Algorithm Based on the Concentrations of Air Pollutants Visualization.

As medical technologies are continuously evolving, consumer involvement in health is also increasing significantly. The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) concept in the health domain may improve the quality of healthcare through the use of wearable sensors and the acquisition of vital and environmental parameters. Currently, there is significant progress in developing new approaches to provide medical care and maintain the safety of the life of the population remotely and around the clock. Despite the standards for emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere established by the legislation of different countries, the level of pollutants in the air often exceeds the permissible limits, which is a danger not only for the population but also for the environment as a whole. To control the situation an Air Quality Index (AQI) was introduced. For today, many works discuss AQI, however, most of them are aimed rather at studying the methodologies for calculating the index and comparing air quality in certain regions of different countries, rather than creating a system that will not only calculate the index in real-time but also make it publicly available and understandable to the population. Therefore we would like to present a decision support algorithm for a solution called "Environmental Sensing to Act for a Better Quality of Life: Smart Health" with the primary goal of ensuring the transformation of raw environmental data collected by special sensors (data which typically require scientific interpretation) into a form that can be easily understood by the average user; this is achieved through the proposed algorithm. The obtained result is a system that increases the self-awareness and self-adaptability of people in environmental monitoring by offering easy to read and understand suggestions. The algorithm considers three types of parameters (concentration of PM10 (particulate matter), PM2.5, and NO2) and four risk levels for each of them. The technical implementation is presented in a step-like procedure and includes all the details (such as calculating the Air Quality Index-AQI, for each parameter). The results are presented in a front-end where the average user can observe the results of the measurements and the suggestions for decision support. This paper presents a supporting decision algorithm, highlights the basic concept that was used in the development process, and discusses the result of the implementation of the proposed solution.

Arrowhead Technology for Digitalization and Automation Solution: Smart Cities and Smart Agriculture.

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept has met requirements for security and reliability in domains like automotive industry, food industry, as well as precision agriculture. Furthermore, System of Systems (SoS) expands the use of local clouds for the evolution of integration and communication technologies. SoS devices need to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities including service-oriented management and different QoS characteristics monitoring. Smart applications depend on information quality since they are driven by processes which require communication robustness and enough bandwidth. Interconnectivity and interoperability facilities among different smart devices can be achieved using Arrowhead Framework technology via its core systems and services. Arrowhead Framework is targeting smart IoT devices with wide applicability areas including smart building, smart energy, smart cities, smart agriculture, etc. The advantages of Arrowhead Framework can be underlined by parameters such as transmission speed, latency, security, etc. This paper presents a survey of Arrowhead Framework in IoT/SoS dedicated architectures for smart cities and smart agriculture developed around smart cities, aiming to outline its significant impact on the global performances. The advantages of Arrowhead Framework technology are emphasized by analysis of several smart cities use-cases and a novel architecture for a telemetry system that will enable the use of Arrowhead technology in smart agriculture area is introduced and detailed by authors.

Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing for Corynebacterium Species Isolated from Clinical Samples in Romania.

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most important public health issues. Besides classical multidrug resistance species associated with medical care involved in superficial or invasive infections, there are strains less commonly associated with hospital or outpatient setting's infections. Non-diphtheria Corynebacterium spp. could produce infections in patients with or without immune-compromised status. The aim of our study was to determine the susceptibility to antimicrobial agents to Corynebacterium spp. from clinical samples collected from Romanian hospitalized individuals and outpatients. Twenty Corynebacterium strains were isolated and identified as Corynebacterium striatum (n = 7), Corynebacterium amycolatum (n = 7), C. urealyticum (n = 3), Corynebacterium afermentans (n = 2), and Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum (n = 1). All isolates have been tested for antibiotic susceptibility by standardized disc diffusion method and minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) tests. Seventeen isolates demonstrated multidrug resistance phenotypes. The molecular support responsible for high resistance to quinolones for ten of these strains was determined by the detection of point mutation in the gene sequence gyrA.

An Intelligent Low-Power Displaying System withIntegrated Emergency Alerting Capability.

Integrated communication infrastructure has become a must-have facility for modernpublic buildings and offices. To cover this need, several commercial products exist on the market,but most of them require advanced technical skill to operate, while others require manual and timeconsumingoperations. This work proposes an intelligent displaying and alerting system (calledSICIAD), implemented over an integrated communication infrastructure with support for wirelessePaper and iBeacon technologies to enhance displaying static and dynamic information, as well asto ease the indoor orientation of guests. A centralized display management console is implemented,as well as procedures for automatically displaying different types of notifications. An Androidmobile application is developed which enables indoor user location and guidance. The systemtargets educational and research institutions but could also cope with public institutions such asmuseums and hospitals. Remote authentication is supported in research facilities through eduroamtechnology, access being provided by the user's distant institution of affiliation. Secure multiplelevelaccess to the system is provided to users, from guests to system administrators, based onlocally defined policies. Functional validation and performance evaluation aspects are presented forthe proposed system.

Big Data, Internet of Things and Cloud Convergence--An Architecture for Secure E-Health Applications.

Big data storage and processing are considered as one of the main applications for cloud computing systems. Furthermore, the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has advanced the research on Machine to Machine (M2M) communications and enabled novel tele-monitoring architectures for E-Health applications. However, there is a need for converging current decentralized cloud systems, general software for processing big data and IoT systems. The purpose of this paper is to analyze existing components and methods of securely integrating big data processing with cloud M2M systems based on Remote Telemetry Units (RTUs) and to propose a converged E-Health architecture built on Exalead CloudView, a search based application. Finally, we discuss the main findings of the proposed implementation and future directions.