Third-party Vendors Research Articles

Direct Versus Indirect Vendor Channels and the Scaling of Worker Voice Around Digital Technologies

In this longitudinal, qualitative study, I follow the use of a digital production monitoring system in a manufacturing firm to study mechanisms for worker voice in the context of digital, networked technologies. As a complement to studies that situate mechanisms for worker voice in the relationship between workers and employers, I draw four conclusions regarding worker voice around these new technologies sometimes referred to as “Industry 4.0.” First, worker voice can meaningfully occur long after the initial design and deployment phases of new technologies. Second, the effectiveness of worker voice may depend on the type of channel that exists between workers and third-party vendors. In particular, direct versus indirect vendor channels for worker voice can shape the practices by which workers draw attention to problems between the technology and the workflow, speak for the benefit of a key user, and pose technology solutions. Third, when workers have direct vendor channels, they can more effectively use voice practices to achieve worker-centric technological capabilities—improvements that expand the control of workers, including reducing surveillance and increasing worker access to data. Finally, new worker-centric technological capabilities can be quickly and broadly distributed by the vendor across the field of firms using the technology.

Tele-Neuro-Ophthalmology During the Age of COVID-19.

Tele-Neuro-Ophthalmology During the Age of COVID-19.

Soft-HaT

A hardware Trojan is a malicious modification to an integrated circuit (IC) made by untrusted third-party vendors, fabrication facilities, or rogue designers. Although existing hardware Trojans are designed to be stealthy, they can, in theory, be detected by post-manufacturing and acceptance tests due to their physical connections to IC logic. Manufacturing tests can potentially trigger the Trojan and propagate its payload to an output. Even if the Trojan is not triggered, the physical connections to the IC can enable detection due to additional side-channel activity (e.g., power consumption). In this article, we propose a novel hardware Trojan design, called Soft-HaT , which only becomes physically connected to other IC logic after activation by a software program. Using an electrically programmable fuse (E-fuse), the hardware can be “re-programmed” remotely. We illustrate how Soft-HaT can be used for offensive applications in system-on-chips. Examples of Soft-HaT attacks are demonstrated on an open source system-on-chip (OrpSoC) and implemented in Virtex-7 FPGA to show their efficacy in terms of stealthiness.

In-house computer-aided design and manufacturing versus traditional open reduction and internal fixation for mandibular trauma

Purpose Computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) are revolutionizing oral and maxillofacial surgery. Current methods utilize virtual surgical planning (VSP) sessions and custom plate fabrication via third-party vendors, which is costly and time consuming, negating the effectiveness in the treatment of acute facial trauma. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility, operative time, and quality of reductions between an in-house CAD/CAM method versus traditional open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF). Methods After receiving approval from our university's institutional review board, an analysis of 20 patients who were treated for acute mandible fractures was completed. The control group received traditional ORIF. The experimental group consisted of patients treated with a preoperative in-house CAD/CAM method and preoperatively bent plates. The primary outcome variable was the overall operative time and the quality of postoperative reductions. Results The 20 patients included in the study had a mean age of 49 years. The average operative time for the control group was 154 ± 35.5 minutes versus 108.3 ± 19.1 minutes in the experimental group (P Conclusion This investigation demonstrated that in-house CAD/CAM methods are feasible and decrease operative time for the management of acute mandibular fractures.

The three Ps of third-party risk

As trusted partners, third-party vendors often become the overlooked or unwitting accomplice in criminal activities. As privacy laws and cyber security regulations continue to increase accountability around data confidentiality and protection, firms are struggling to shift from an in-house security paradigm to gain line of sight that extends to cover their vendors and the entire supply chain. Beyond the umbrella frameworks of NIST,1 ISO 27001 information and security management2 and ISO 27032 guidelines for cyber security,3 two smaller and —perhaps more palatable — guidelines offer simplified elements to frame supply chain risk management. The first, from the New York Department of Finance Cyber Rules NYCRR 500, section 11, provides actionable steps to access and mitigate vendor risk. The second resource comes from the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK, organised as 12 principles to grapple with supply chain risk, including defining risk, establishing mitigation controls, validating assurances and building in continuous improvement. This paper will explore the risks associated with third-party vendors, and how adversaries are leveraging supply chain vulnerabilities. It will also examine research that supports a three-step programme comprising policies (controls, due diligence tools and validation mechanisms), prevention (establishing risks and defining defensive requirements) and promises (contractual obligations, demarcated responsibilities, defined standards and warranties).

Characterisation of elemental analysis, carbon sulphur analysis and impact test of stent manufacturing using medical grade ASTM F75 cobalt chromium (CoCrMo) by selective laser melting (SLM) technology

ABSTRACT This paper explains and demonstrates the capabilities of metal additive manufacturing (MAM) technology in producing intricate stent structure with a customise design by using ASTM F75 cobalt chromium powder. The elemental analysis (EDX-SEM), carbon sulphur analysis and Impact Test are being develop and tested and thus exploring the potential area of MAM process for future proof stent manufacturing. By alternatively switching to MAM, the step of production can be minimised and thus customisation of stent can be carried out according to the patient’s need. The suggested model of the stent was taken from the third-party vendor and fabrication was carried out using EOSINT M280 metal printer with the aid of Materialise Magics 19.0 software for support generation.

Covert Device Association Among Colluding Apps via Edge Processor Workload

While thriving application (app) distribution systems involving incentivized third-party app vendors are desirable for the emerging edge computing paradigm, they also bring security challenges as faced by the current mobile app distribution systems. This article studies a threat called covert device association , in which the vendors of two apps collude to figure out which of their app installations run on the same edge device. The threat can widely spread when the two apps are popular. It is also a stepping stone for: 1) the de-anonymization attacks against the users anonymous to one of the two vendors and 2) privilege escalation in which the two colluding vendors have united privileges. We show that the threat can be implemented via a reliable and ubiquitous covert channel based on the edge device’s processor workload without requiring any privileged permissions. We present the implementation details for three attack scenarios of: 1) two Android apps; 2) an Android app and a Web session running in the mobile Tor browser; and 3) two Android Things apps. Evaluation on two smartphones and an embedded edge device shows that the covert channel gives at least 0.25 b/s data rate with zero empirical bit error rate and the covert device association can be completed within 3.2 min.

Non-FDA-Reviewed Imported European Formula Use Among Parents in Urban Pediatric Private Practice.

In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics warned consumers over the increasing use of imported infant formulas. The purpose of this study was to assess the usage of imported European infant formula among parents in a large urban private practice. An anonymous survey was distributed at well-child appointments to a convenience sample of parents at an urban private pediatric practice from November 2017 to March 2018. Of the 750 eligible respondents, 552 (74%) completed the survey. Of the parents using formula, 20% were using imported European infant formulas. The most commonly used formula was Holle (33%), and 72% were acquired from web-based third-party vendors. Parents chose to use these formulas because they believed that European formulas contained better ingredients. Only 8% of parents received information about European infant formula from their pediatricians. Pediatricians need to be aware of these formulas and their risks to educate families on the use and safety of these formulas.

MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Platform Provider Roles in Innovation in Software Service Ecosystems

Following a new innovation strategy, software vendors move their software onto their software service platforms and open up their platforms to third-party software service vendors. Although many studies state that enlarging the scope of software service offerings is the goal of the platform providers, only a few studies have focused on the roles that the platform providers take on to achieve the goal. These studies identified that the platform providers not only manage the platform but also promote and regulate third-party software. In this article, we extend this research by analyzing the activities of how platform providers promote innovation. For the analysis, we use empirical data about software services gathered from AppExchange of Salesforce. The analysis identifies the clusters and positions of software services of Salesforce and third-party vendors in the software service network. Our analysis results show that Salesforce promotes innovation by provisioning software services that are in core positions or that are bridges between service clusters. Third-party vendors release software services that are complementary to those of Salesforce. Overall, the results suggest that platform providers need to position strategically their software services to build successful software ecosystems, and that research on innovation needs to analyze the roles and efforts of the platform providers in detail.

Cloud Computing Adoption at Higher Educational Institutions in the KSA for Sustainable Development

Rapid changes in the advancements of information and communication technologies (ICT) have prompted Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) to enhance teaching and learning. Over the years, cloud computing (CC) has become an emerging and adoptable paradigm in many industries including healthcare, finance, and law with its promising benefits. This trend is also growing in the field of education around the globe. Due to its inherent qualities of reliability, scalability, flexibility and reasonable cost, cloud is the solution that addressed the accessibility issue for quality education. CC plays an important role and will have major impacts on HEIs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the near future. HEIs are used to utilize the benefits of CC based services provided by the cloud service providers (CSPs). The CSP can be owned by the KSA government, private, or third-party vendors. By using cloud-based services at HEIs, staff, faculty, and students can utilize its services to perform various academic responsibilities on demand. This paper aims to adopt CC for HEIs and explore the prominent features and potential benefits of adopting cloud services in the HEIs of KSA. This paper also reveals numerous challenges, impacts, and major issues involved in adopting cloud services for HEIs.

Privacy Law's False Promise

Privacy laws have never seemed stronger. New international, national, state, and local laws have been passed with the promise of greater protection for consumers. Courts across the globe are reclaiming the law’s power to limit collection of our data. And yet, our privacy seems more in danger now than ever, with frequent admissions of nefarious data use practices from social media, mobile apps, and e-commerce websites, among others. Why are privacy laws, seemingly more comprehensive than ever, not working to protect our privacy? This article explains why. Based on original primary source research—interviews with engineers, privacy professionals, and vendor executives; product demonstrations; webinars, blogs, industry literature; and more—this Article argues that privacy law is failing to deliver its promised protections in part because the responsibility for fulfilling legal obligations is being outsourced to engineers at third-party technology vendors who see privacy law through a corporate, rather than substantive, lens. This phenomenon is placing privacy law in the middle of a process of what scholars have called legal endogeneity: mere symbols of compliance are standing in for real privacy protections. Toothless trainings, audits, and paper trails, among other symbols, are being confused for actual adherence to privacy law, which has the effect of undermining the promise of greater privacy protection for consumers.

Automated Design of Reconfigurable Microarchitectures for Accelerators Under Wide-Voltage Scaling

This article introduces a systematic methodology to design microarchitectures that are reconfigurable down to the pipeline stage. Reconfigurable microarchitectures were showed to provide significant energy improvements in accelerators under wide-voltage scaling. However, prior art is based on ad hoc techniques that limit their applicability, without addressing the challenge of enabling general design flows for reconfigurable microarchitectures. The proposed methodology introduces the unprecedented capability of translating a conventional fixed microarchitecture into a reconfigurable one. The methodology relies on commercial EDA tools, which are integrated into a design flow through the manipulation of the gate-level netlist via a set of graph algorithms. The proposed methodology is shown to be architecture-agnostic, fully automated, and applicable to designs that are either developed at the register transfer level (RTL), or provided by third-party soft IP vendors. Ultimately, the proposed methodology allows to add microarchitectural adjustment as a run-time knob to augment the energy benefits of wide-voltage scaling. Reconfiguration is shown to improve the energy efficiency by up to 35% beyond the conventional dynamic voltage frequency scaling (DVFS), through the analysis of various test vehicles.

EXISTING STRATEGIES FOR ELECTRONIC DATA COLLECTION BY ELDER ABUSE MULTI-DISCIPLINARY TEAMS

Elder abuse cases often require integrated responses from social services, medicine, civil legal, and criminal justice. Multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs), which meet periodically to discuss and coordinate interventions for complex cases, have developed in many communities. Little is known about how these MDTs collect case-level data. Our objective was to describe existing strategies of case-level electronic data collection conducted by MDTs across the United States as a preliminary step in developing a comprehensive database strategy. To identify MDTs currently collecting data electronically, we used a snowball sampling approach discussing with national leaders. We also sent an e-mail to the National Center for Elder Abuse listserv inviting participation. We identified and reviewed 11 databases from MDTs. Strategies for and comprehensiveness of data collection varied widely. Databases used ranged from a simple spreadsheet to a customized Microsoft Access database to large databases designed and managed by a third-party vendor. Total data fields collected ranged from 12-338. Types of data included intake/baseline case/client information, case tracking/follow-up, and case closure/outcomes. Information tracked by many MDTs, such as type of mistreatment, was not captured in a single standard fashion. Documentation about data entry processes varied from absent to detailed. We concluded that MDTs currently use widely varied strategies to track data electronically and are not capturing data in a standardized fashion. Many MDTs collect only minimal data. Based on this, we have developed recommendations for a minimum data set and optimal data structure. If widely adopted, this would potentially improve ability to conduct large-scale comparative research.

IMPACT OF OUTSOURCING OF HUMAN RESOURCES ON TEAM PERFORMANCE IN A POLISH MINING COMPANY

Motivation: In recent years outsourcing of a variety of different activities has been more commonly observed in the coal mining industry. It is connected with employing workers through external companies. These practices are not necessarily perceived as good ones by employees.
 Approach and results: This article aims to present how workers perceive these practices. Therefore, two surveys have been conducted. The first, of outsourcing underground work to third-party vendors, was carried out in a group of randomly chosen underground workers of a mining company (PGG Sp. z o.o.). The other survey, also of outsourcing underground work to third-party vendors, was carried out in a group of workers of a third-party vendor working for PGG Sp. z o.o.
 Conclusions: Analysing the results from the surveys allowed for a better understanding of the reasons for the disapproval of outsourcing underground work. This in turn may be used for better human resource management in coal companies including in particular planning an incentive based pay systems

Agency Perspectives on Online Public Records Request Portals

Spurred by converging trends facilitated by the interactive web, government agencies are moving to digitize and make more transparent the public record request (PRR) process via dual-facing online portals. Such portals, often provided by third-party vendors as SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, are built on the premise and promise of helping agencies streamline their internal workflows while aiding requesters through the sometimes labyrinthine process of accessing public records. This research aims to study the effects and efficacy of such portals from the agency perspective, both at the process level and in a broader sense of reshaping the relationship between citizen and government. Set within a contextual framework of the trends from which these portals have emerged, a survey of 54 U.S. public jurisdictions suggests that online portals are significantly improving agencies’ internal and external processes of receiving, tracking, and responding to requests for public records, but do not necessarily bring correlative improvement in their overall relationship with citizens for a number of possible reasons.

Implementing ASBP: A Novel framework for Sanitizing Android Apps.

Paper The advent of Android as a mobile OS has revolutionized the way we perceive life today. It has permeated now from handhelds to becoming an inclusive and persistently increasing member of our day to day lives. We are increasingly becoming dependent on technology in our everyday lives, insomuch that it is impossible to envision the world without it. Android is at the forefront of this revolution. It has practically rendered the Personal computer useless and has shown the world a new way of transacting on the go using our smartphones and tablets. However, with all the facilities, there comes the shadow of insecurity and data privacy compromise. This is an area which requires deeper introspection and research because it is required to ensure seamless and hassle-free operations in our day to day activities. The current research tries to delve deep into the innards of Android to come up with some plausible solutions to assuage somewhat the wounds that thee intentional leaks of the operating system can give. In this paper, in the successive sections, we propose a framework which would help us in removing the identified vulnerabilities that afflict Android, namely third-party apps and vendor customized ones. We would also propose a set of guidelines for improving the Permissions model. We call our framework, “The ASBP Framework.” (App Sanitization and Better Permissions).

Assessment of Repaired Diagnostic Ultrasound Probes

A growing number of repaired and refurbished diagnostic ultrasound probes are supplied by a small number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and many third-party vendors. OEMs ensure that their devices meet regulatory requirements; any repairs using non-OEM materials carry the risk of non-compliance. The aim of this study was to test examples of probe repairs using methods selected to illustrate their possible impact on function. Of 3212 used probes assessed, 21 were found to have undergone repair involving functional parts: 9 incorrectly wired, 11 non-OEM arrays and 1 relensed probe. For repairs not involving functional parts, before and after electronic probe testing may be sufficient to determine that no damage has occurred. For repairs involving functional parts, a more comprehensive suite of tests is necessary to determine that the materials, parts and final product match the performance of the OEM probe and meet regulatory requirements.

In-House Digital Workflow for the Management of Acute Mandible Fractures

Computer-aided design and additive manufacturing are revolutionizing oral and maxillofacial surgery. Current methods use virtual surgical planning sessions and custom plate milling via third-party vendors, which is costly and time-consuming, negating the effectiveness in acute facial trauma. This technical note describes a state-of-the-art in-house expedited digital workflow for computer-aided virtual fracture reduction, 3-dimensional printing, and preoperative reconstruction plate adaptation for the management of an acute mandible fracture. This process uses the computed tomographic scan a patient receives in the emergency department or clinic. The DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) data are transferred into US Food and Drug Administration-approved software, in which the fracture is segmented and virtually reduced based on condylar position, midline symmetries, and occlusion if present. The reduced mandible is then printed, which serves as a template for preoperative reconstruction plate adaptation. This method facilitates a virtually reduced fractured mandible, 3-dimensionally printed model, and ideally adapted plates ready for sterilization before surgery within 2hours after DICOM upload.

Preventing Today's GME Disasters: Lessons Learned From a Failed Contract Renewal.

Preventing Today's GME Disasters: Lessons Learned From a Failed Contract Renewal.