Set Of Minimum Requirements Research Articles

The process of declaring information security profiles

The article discusses the process of declaring information security profiles, which is an important aspect of ensuring information security in modern organizations. The main purpose of the declaration is to establish clear requirements and control measures to ensure an appropriate level of protection of information assets against potential threats and vulnerabilities. The authors of the article analyze the basic and target information security profiles, emphasizing their features, advantages and disadvantages. In particular, the basic security profile is considered as a minimum set of requirements that can be quickly implemented to ensure an initial level of protection. At the same time, the target security profile is aimed at more detailed adaptation of security measures to the specific needs and risks of the organization, which provides a higher level of protection. The process of declaring security profiles includes several stages, such as assessing the current state of security, identifying threats and vulnerabilities, defining security requirements, developing and implementing security profiles, and regularly monitoring and updating security measures. The article also discusses the current standards and regulations that govern the process of declaring security profiles, in particular, NIST SP 800-53 rev. 5, ISO/IEC 27001, and ND TZI 3.6-006-21. The article analyzes how these standards can be used to create effective security profiles that meet the specific requirements of organizations of various sizes and industries. The authors conclude that the process of declaring information security profiles is critical to ensuring an adequate level of protection of information assets. Implementation of clearly defined security profiles allows organizations to take a systematic approach to risk management, reduce the likelihood of security incidents and increase the overall level of information security.

Lipoprotein(a) and cardiovascular disease: sifting the evidence to guide future research.

Lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) is a genetically determined causal risk factor for cardiovascular disease including coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, ischaemic stroke, and calcific aortic valve stenosis. Clinical trials of specific and potent Lp(a)-lowering drugs are currently underway. However, in clinical practice, widespread assessment of Lp(a) is still lacking despite several guideline recommendations to measure Lp(a) at least once in a lifetime in all adults to identify those at high or very high risk due to elevated levels. The present review provides an overview of key findings from observational and genetic Lp(a) studies, highlights the main challenges in observational Lp(a) studies, and proposes a minimum set of requirements to enhance the quality and harmonize the collection of Lp(a)-related data. Adherence to the recommendations set forth in the present manuscript is intended to enhance the quality of future observational Lp(a) studies, to better define thresholds for increased risk, and to better inform clinical trial design. The recommendations can also potentially assist in the interpretation and generalization of clinical trial findings, to improve care of patients with elevated Lp(a) and optimize treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Law and discretion in monetary policy and in the banking union: Complexity between high politics and administration

The controversy over the degree of judicial review of monetary policy decisions triggered by the contrasting Weiss judgments of the German Federal Constitutional Court and of the Court of Justice of the European Union invites an inquiry into the role of law in areas characterized by a high degree of political and technical complexity. This article singles out the structural conditions that qualify complexity in specific instances of decision-making: prognostic assessments, goal-oriented decisions, marked by uncertainty, legal indeterminacy, and discretion. These traits characterize both monetary policy decisions and some regulatory decisions taken within the banking union, such as the setting of minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) and the calculation of the leverage ratios of credit institutions (Livret A judgments). Irrespective of the very distinct formal-institutional legal frameworks of these two policy fields, in those conditions legality may be determined by the discretionary choices of the decision-maker. For this reason, they impact the court’s deployment of legal principles, namely proportionality and careful and impartial examination. This cross-sector comparison sheds light on the relative specificity of monetary policy, and leads to rejecting the transposition of a distinction between “high politics” and “ordinary administration” to EU law, as a means of both explaining and guiding different degrees of judicial review in conditions of complexity. The different constitutional relevance of monetary policy decisions and of “ordinary” banking supervision requires not a distinction that can rationalize judicial review, but a full consideration of the role that the law must have in supporting non-judicial accountability. judicial review of administrative discretion, complex technical and economic assessments, monetary policy, proportionality, banking union, principle of careful and impartial examination

A New Format of Interaction between Public Authorities on the Implementation of the Regional Investment Standard

This article discusses the practice of interaction between public authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities in the process of creating a favorable investment climate in the implementation of the regional investment standard. The comparative analysis of the implementation of municipal investment standards in various subjects of the Russian Federation, including the rating of municipalities based on the results of the assessment of the investment climate, was carried out. The problems of heterogeneous rating methods and requirements established by regional authorities for municipalities to ensure a favorable investment climate are identified. A number of universal indicators of the municipal investment rating are listed. Based on the conducted research, the authors confirmed the need to develop and adopt at the federal level a municipal investment standard with a minimum set of requirements for working with investors.

A postulate-driven study of logical argumentation

Logical argumentation is a well-known approach to modeling non-monotonic reasoning with conflicting information. In this paper we provide a comprehensive postulate-based study of properties of logical argumentation frameworks and a full characterization of their semantics and inference relations. In this way we identify well-behaved formal argumentative models of drawing logically justified inferences from a given set of possibly conflicting defeasible, as well as strict assumptions. Given some desiderata in terms of rationality postulates, we consider the conditions that an argumentation framework should fulfill for the desiderata to hold. One purpose of this approach is to assist designers to “plug-in” pre-defined formalisms according to actual needs. To this end, we present a classification of argumentation frameworks relative to the types of attacks they implement. In turn, for each class we determine which desiderata are satisfied. Our study is highly abstract, supposing only a minimal set of requirements on the considered underlying deductive systems, and in this way covering a broad range of formalisms, including classical, intuitionistic and modal logics.

Genetic Conservation and Use of Genetic Resources of 18 Mexican Pine Species

Genetic conservation is key to maintaining forests for the future; however, these face several threats. Mexico is an example of the degradation of forest genetic resources during the past three decades due to its deforestation rates. This country is considered a center of pine diversity but its genetic conservation efforts are not enough. To define genetic conservation units (GCUs) and propose measures for the conservation and sustainable use of 18 Mexican pine species, we analyzed the distribution of the species at the national level and in germplasm transfer zones, and evaluated the species with a set of minimum requirements for conservation and indicators from the EUFORGEN program. We determined that 13 to 15 genetic zones harbored the target species, in which Pinus teocote, Pinus cembroides, Pinus devoniana, Pinus maximinoi, Pinus douglasiana, and Pinus leiophylla were the most widely distributed. We defined 173 areas for establishing GCUs for the total of the species studied; 50% of them were selected from areas with genetic information, 5% were selected from seed stands, and 45% from natural forests. We detected that most of the forest reproductive material used is collected from seed stands, and the use of seeds from breeding trials is scarce.

Classroom mock-up meeting Standard S12.60

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) developed a standard entitled Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools (ASA/ANSI S12.60-2010) that provides a minimum set of requirements to help school planners and designers “provide good acoustical characteristics for classrooms and other learning spaces in which speech communication is an important part of the learning process.” In this revision, several details were revised for incorporation into building codes. Despite the obvious benefits of quieter classrooms, incorporating the standard into building codes met with resistance. A common perception was that in order to meet the standard’s requirements, specialized HVAC equipment and installation methods would be necessary, resulting in an installed cost beyond what most schools could afford. Acoustical prediction tools indicated that the requirements could be met using standard HVAC equipment and installation methods. To verify the predictions, a simulated classroom was built and several common types of equipment including a single-zone air handling unit, a high-efficiency water-source heat pump, and a packaged rooftop unit were tested. The selected products were standard catalog offerings, without any special attenuation features, that were operated at typical airflow and static pressures. This paper describes those tests, the conclusion, and the resulting recommendations.

Proposal of requirements for the development of a training simulator for the auditory-perceptual judgment of voice.

to identify a set of requirements for the development of an auditory-perceptual training simulator (APT) based on the experience of professors who provide APT. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive study with a quantitative approach. Twenty-two professors answered an online questionnaire containing 31 items related to APT, involving items about the professional profile, conditions for APT in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Speech Therapy, APT structure, and evaluation of the APT effect. it was observed that there is a variation in APT procedures performed in Brazil. The main requirements indicated by the respondents for the APT involve the use of synthesized voices in the initial moments, followed by human voices later; the use of speech tasks with sustained vowels and connected speech; the insertion of complementary information such as gender, age, the profession of the speaker and the spectrography of the vocal signal; training with a minimum time of six hours; the evaluation of the training effect by comparing intra- and inter-judge agreement before and after training; the addition of the parameters of general degree of vocal deviation, roughness, breathiness, and strain; the use of validated continuous and numerical scales; and offering it from the second year of the undergraduate program. although there is variability in the response of experts, a minimum set of requirements indicated for performing APT with new judges was identified.

Proposição de requisitos para o desenvolvimento de um simulador de treinamento para julgamento perceptivo-auditivo da voz

ABSTRACT Purpose to identify a set of requirements for the development of an auditory-perceptual training simulator (APT) based on the experience of professors who provide APT. Methods This is a cross-sectional, descriptive study with a quantitative approach. Twenty-two professors answered an online questionnaire containing 31 items related to APT, involving items about the professional profile, conditions for APT in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Speech Therapy, APT structure, and evaluation of the APT effect. Result it was observed that there is a variation in APT procedures performed in Brazil. The main requirements indicated by the respondents for the APT involve the use of synthesized voices in the initial moments, followed by human voices later; the use of speech tasks with sustained vowels and connected speech; the insertion of complementary information such as gender, age, the profession of the speaker and the spectrography of the vocal signal; training with a minimum time of six hours; the evaluation of the training effect by comparing intra- and inter-judge agreement before and after training; the addition of the parameters of general degree of vocal deviation, roughness, breathiness, and strain; the use of validated continuous and numerical scales; and offering it from the second year of the undergraduate program. Conclusion although there is variability in the response of experts, a minimum set of requirements indicated for performing APT with new judges was identified.

Recycled EPS insulation plates: critical factors and potentialities for the productive feasibility of a venture in the District of La Plata

Previous research has allowed developing and characterizing an expanded polystyrene waste (EPS) based insulation material that can be used to manufacture plates, providing job opportunities to unemployed or vulnerable social groups. By working together with a local recycling cooperative, the production processes needed for their manufacture on a scale suitable for commercialization were determined. The goal of this research is to analyze these production processes and identify the critical aspects that make the technology’s implementation and management viable. The methodology used involves i. the product’s adaptation; ii. determining supplies and resources for its feasibility; iii. detecting the most critical production processes; and, iv. adapting to the particular case of application. A set of minimum requirements is obtained to develop a productive venture. In addition, the most critical processes related to the separation and obtaining of the EPS and its continuous supply over time, are identified. The results summarize contributions to replicate and make this experience sustainable.

Problems of course design management in the formation of professional competencies of IT specialists

The authors analyze the relevance of the object of research, which is dictated by the ever-increasing role of competence-based education both at the stage of training at a higher educational institution and in the learning process throughout the professional path of IT specialists. The article is devoted to the specifics of planning and managing the process of creating course projects by future IT specialists during their studies at a higher educational institution. The emphasis in the article is on the aspect that the process of managing the direction of course design is in many ways similar to the process of creating IT products, which undoubtedly needs to be taken into account when determining the difficulties and features of managing the direction of course design of IT specialists. During the research, the main objective and subjective causes of difficulties during the process of creating a course project for students of IT specialties were identified, and ways of leveling them were determined. As a result of the analysis of project management techniques and practices, the critical chain method is identified as an effective tool for managing the planning and implementation of tasks in project activities. The purpose of the study is to study methods and practices in project activities and adapt their features to the practice of developing future IT specialists course projects as mini IT projects with a minimum set of requirements and participants, which can undoubtedly be considered as a mini model of a real IT project. The article analyzes the factors influencing the unfavorable course of execution and completion of course projects, highlights the main artifacts of course design, determines the length of the project buffer by the critical chain method. Based on the results of the study, practical recommendations are given for the effective planning and management of course design of future IT specialists.

Quality Criteria for Real-world Data in Pharmaceutical Research and Health Care Decision-making: Austrian Expert Consensus.

Real-world data (RWD) collected in routine health care processes and transformed to real-world evidence have become increasingly interesting within the research and medical communities to enhance medical research and support regulatory decision-making. Despite numerous European initiatives, there is still no cross-border consensus or guideline determining which qualities RWD must meet in order to be acceptable for decision-making within regulatory or routine clinical decision support. In the absence of guidelines defining the quality standards for RWD, an overview and first recommendations for quality criteria for RWD in pharmaceutical research and health care decision-making is needed in Austria. An Austrian multistakeholder expert group led by Gesellschaft für Pharmazeutische Medizin (Austrian Society for Pharmaceutical Medicine) met regularly; reviewed and discussed guidelines, frameworks, use cases, or viewpoints; and agreed unanimously on a set of quality criteria for RWD. This consensus statement was derived from the quality criteria for RWD to be used more effectively for medical research purposes beyond the registry-based studies discussed in the European Medicines Agency guideline for registry-based studies. This paper summarizes the recommendations for the quality criteria of RWD, which represents a minimum set of requirements. In order to future-proof registry-based studies, RWD should follow high-quality standards and be subjected to the quality assurance measures needed to underpin data quality. Furthermore, specific RWD quality aspects for individual use cases (eg, medical or pharmacoeconomic research), market authorization processes, or postmarket authorization phases have yet to be elaborated.

Modeling of Energy Consumption and Reduction of Pollutant Emissions in a Walking Beam Furnace Using the Expert Method—Case Study

This paper presents an algorithm for modeling electricity and natural gas consumption in a walking furnace with the use of artificial intelligence and simulation methods, depending on the length of the rolling campaign and the established rolling program. This algorithm is the basis for the development of a proposal for a set of minimum requirements characterizing the Best Available Techniques (BAT) for beam furnaces intended for hot rolling, taking into account the requirements set out in national regulations and the recommendations described in the BREF reference documents. This information should be taken into account when drawing up an application for an integrated permit, as well as when setting emission limit values. Based on the constructed algorithm, it was shown that depending on their type and technical specification, the analyzed projects will offer measurable economic benefits in the form of reducing the amount of energy consumed by 1,076,400 kWh during the implementation of 50 rolling campaigns to reduce gas by 14,625 GJ and environmental benefits in the form of reduction of pollutant emissions into the atmosphere 80–360 g/Mg. The constructed algorithm was validated in the Dosimis-3 program, based on a discrete event-driven simulation. Thanks to this representation of the model, its user can interactively participate in changes that take place in the model and thus evaluate its behavior. The model, verified in real conditions, can be the basic source of information for making effective operational technological decisions related to the preparation of production at the rolling mill as part of planning and long-term activities.

Artificial Intelligence for Computer Vision in Surgery: A Call for Developing Reporting Guidelines.

Artificial Intelligence for Computer Vision in Surgery: A Call for Developing Reporting Guidelines.

The CORBEL matrix on informed consent in clinical studies: a multidisciplinary approach of Research Infrastructures Building Enduring Life-science Services

BackgroundInformed consent forms for clinical research are several and variable at international, national and local levels. According to the literature, they are often unclear and poorly understood by participants. Within the H2020 project CORBEL—Coordinated Research Infrastructures Building Enduring Life-science Services—clinical researchers, researchers in ethical, social, and legal issues, experts in planning and management of clinical studies, clinicians, researchers in citizen involvement and public engagement worked together to provide a minimum set of requirements for informed consent in clinical studies.MethodsThe template was based on a literature review including systematic reviews and guidelines searched on PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, NICE, SIGN, GIN, and Clearinghouse databases, and on comparison of templates gathered through an extensive search on the websites of research institutes, national and international agencies, and international initiatives. We discussed the draft versions step-by-step and then we referred to it as the “matrix” to underline its modular character and indicate that it allows adaptation to the context in which it will be used. The matrix was revised by representatives of two international patient groups.ResultsThe matrix covers the process of ensuring that the appropriate information, context and setting are provided so that the participant can give truly informed consent. It addresses the key topics and proposes wording on how to clarify the meaning of placebo and of non-inferiority studies, the importance of individual participants’ data sharing, and the impossibility of knowing in advance how the data might be used in future studies. Finally, it presents general suggestions on wording, format, and length of the information sheet.ConclusionsThe matrix underlines the importance of improving the process of communication, its proper conditions (space, time, setting), and addresses the participants’ lack of knowledge on how clinical research is conducted. It can be easily applied to a specific setting and could be a useful tool to identify the appropriate informed consent format for any study. The matrix is mainly intended to support multicentre interventional randomized clinical studies, but several suggestions also apply to non-interventional research.

State of the Art in Adoption of Contact Tracing Apps and Recommendations Regarding Privacy Protection and Public Health: Systematic Review.

BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing apps have received a lot of public attention. The ongoing debate highlights the challenges of the adoption of data-driven innovation. We reflect on how to ensure an appropriate level of protection of individual data and how to maximize public health benefits that can be derived from the collected data.ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to analyze available COVID-19 contact tracing apps and verify to what extent public health interests and data privacy standards can be fulfilled simultaneously in the process of the adoption of digital health technologies.MethodsA systematic review of PubMed and MEDLINE databases, as well as grey literature, was performed to identify available contact tracing apps. Two checklists were developed to evaluate (1) the apps’ compliance with data privacy standards and (2) their fulfillment of public health interests. Based on both checklists, a scorecard with a selected set of minimum requirements was created with the goal of estimating whether the balance between the objective of data privacy and public health interests can be achieved in order to ensure the broad adoption of digital technologies.ResultsOverall, 21 contact tracing apps were reviewed. In total, 11 criteria were defined to assess the usefulness of each digital technology for public health interests. The most frequently installed features related to contact alerting and governmental accountability. The least frequently installed feature was the availability of a system of medical or organizational support. Only 1 app out of 21 (5%) provided a threshold for the population coverage needed for the digital solution to be effective. In total, 12 criteria were used to assess the compliance of contact tracing apps with data privacy regulations. Explicit user consent, voluntary use, and anonymization techniques were among the most frequently fulfilled criteria. The least often implemented criteria were provisions of information about personal data breaches and data gathered from children. The balance between standards of data protection and public health benefits was achieved best by the COVIDSafe app and worst by the Alipay Health Code app.ConclusionsContact tracing apps with high levels of compliance with standards of data privacy tend to fulfill public health interests to a limited extent. Simultaneously, digital technologies with a lower level of data privacy protection allow for the collection of more data. Overall, this review shows that a consistent number of apps appear to comply with standards of data privacy, while their usefulness from a public health perspective can still be maximized.

Updates on Guidelines for Mobile Health Applications

The prevalence of mobile health (mHealth) applications has already been on a steady upswing, and home health considerations are being influenced by other factors such as the global COVID-19 pandemic. It is more critical now than ever before that mHealth is well-designed, user-centered, and, even when apps are unregulated, meet a minimum set of requirements to be considered acceptable. There has been an ongoing industry effort to establish these minimum requirements so that developers have a consolidated reference point. Through efforts by a working group and topic domain teams, this set of Guidelines has been iterated and improved over the past several years. The domain team for the Usability portion of the Guidelines set out make the requirements practical, actionable, and measurable throughout the app development process.

Cybersecurity Standards in the Context of Operating System

Cyber threats have been growing tremendously in recent years. There are significant advancements in the threat space that have led towards an essential need for the strengthening of digital infrastructure security. Better security can be achieved by fine-tuning system parameters to the best and optimized security levels. For the protection of infrastructure and information systems, several guidelines have been provided by well-known organizations in the form of cybersecurity standards. Since security vulnerabilities incur a very high degree of financial, reputational, informational, and organizational security compromise, it is imperative that a baseline for standard compliance be established. The selection of security standards and extracting requirements from those standards in an organizational context is a tedious task. This article presents a detailed literature review, a comprehensive analysis of various cybersecurity standards, and statistics of cyber-attacks related to operating systems (OS). In addition to that, an explicit comparison between the frameworks, tools, and software available for OS compliance testing is provided. An in-depth analysis of the most common software solutions ensuring compliance with certain cybersecurity standards is also presented. Finally, based on the cybersecurity standards under consideration, a comprehensive set of minimum requirements is proposed for OS hardening and a few open research challenges are discussed.

Digital Infrastructure Integrity Protocol for Smart and Legal Contracts DIIP 2021

A protocol intended to act as a minimum set of requirements and recommendations for any high integrity digital infrastructure or Enterprise Platform (EP) intended to support Smart Legal Contracts: software-based legal contracts that are machine readable and have jointly-agreed coded instructions. This is also intended to inform requirements for other similarly ‘smart’ Legal Documents such as compliance or policy documentation. This protocol recognises that contracts are a special class of asset that underpin both the economy and a well-functioning society. To this end there is a public interest in requiring high integrity EPs supporting contracts to adhere to a base set of requirements. This protocol recognises that lawyers with professional duties as officers of the court will be best able to meet those duties if high integrity EPs are used commercially and by the public; This protocol is intended as a practical resource to inform platform developers, investors, regulators, users, legislators, judiciary and any other interested stakeholders as to key features and functions of an EP that they might like to consider in adjudicating whether an EP for Smart Legal Contracts is fit for purpose.

Status of the International Gravity Reference System and Frame

The increasing importance of terrestrial gravimetry in monitoring global change processes, in providing a reference for satellite measurements and in applications in metrology necessitates a stable reference system reflecting the measurement accuracy achievable by modern gravimeters. Therefore, over the last decade, the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) has developed a system to achieve accurate, homogeneous, long-term global recording of Earth’s gravity, while taking advantage of the potential of today’s absolute gravity measurements. The current status of the International Gravity Reference System and Frame is presented as worked out by the IAG Joint Working Group 2.1.1 “Establishment of a global absolute gravity reference system” during the period 2015–2019. Here, the system is defined by the instantaneous acceleration of free-fall, expressed in the International System of Units (SI) and a set of conventional corrections for the time-independent components of gravity effects. The frame as the systems realization includes a set of conventional temporal gravity corrections which represent a uniform set of minimum requirements. Measurements with absolute gravimeters, the traceability of which is ensured by comparisons and monitoring at reference stations, provide the basis of the frame. A global set of such stations providing absolute gravity values at the microgal level is the backbone of the frame. Core stations with at least one available space geodetic technique will provide a link to the terrestrial reference frame. Expanded facilities enabling instrumental verification as well as repeated regional and additional comparisons will complement key comparisons at the level of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) and ensure a common reference and the traceability to the SI. To make the gravity reference system accessible to any user and to replace the previous IGSN71 network, an infrastructure based on absolute gravity observations needs to be built up. This requires the support of national agencies, which are encouraged to establish compatible first order gravity networks and to provide information about existing absolute gravity observations.