Traceability

Traceability is the capability to trace something. In some cases, it is interpreted as the ability to verify the history, location, or application of an item by means of documented recorded identification. Other common definitions include the capability (and implementation) of keeping track of a given set or type of information to a given degree, or the ability to chronologically interrelate uniquely identifiable entities in a way that is verifiable. Traceability is applicable to measurement, supply chain, software development, healthcare and security. Measurement The term measurement traceability or metrological traceability is used to refer to an unbroken chain of comparisons relating an instrument's measurements to a known standard. Calibration to a traceable standard can be used to determine an instrument's bias, precision, and accuracy. It may also be used to show a chain of custody - from current interpretation of evidence to the actual evidence in a legal context, or

Privacy - Preserving Data Exchange and Aggregation in Healthcare

Alevtina Dubovitskaya

Medical data are often scattered among multiple clinics, hospitals, insurance companies, pharmacies, and research institutions that store and process personal healthcare information. The use of information and communication technologies for health (eHealth) provides us with the means to share healthcare data between authorized parties in an efficient manner. In this thesis, we address some of the challenges of implementing eHealth in practice: to achieve interoperability between data sources, and to ensure privacy for patients. Achieving both of these guarantees is our goal but they seem conflictual, hence the challenge. Once interoperability is achieved and a patientâs data are shared, it becomes evenmore difficult to ensure the patientâs privacy i.e., to provide to a patient control over his data and to guarantee the data anonymity in medical research. We address the aforementioned challenges by studying requirements from medical and legal perspectives, and by developing algorithms and frameworks to support privacy-preserving dynamic data-sharing, exchange, and aggregation from multiple data sources. In the first part of the thesis, we address certain privacy challenges. We present a framework based on the blockchain technology for ensuring traceability and accountability when sharing, exchanging, and aggregating medical data. Our framework ensures privacy, security, availability, and fine-grained access control over highly sensitive patient-data. We also analyze the potential of applying blockchain technology in different eHealth settings: primary care, medical-data research, and connected health. Our second contribution is a framework for privacy-preserving data aggregation: an algorithm for constructing the anonymized database and a protocol that improves the utility of the anonymized database as the database grows. In the second part of the thesis, we focus on achieving interoperability. We design an interface specification that defines communication protocols andmessages supporting integration of a new software tool in clinical practice. Then, we develop a multi-agent system (MAS) for the dynamic aggregation of the data collected and generated by this software tool for the purpose of clinical research. This MAS takes into account the objectives of the research study, the availability of data, and could employ our proposed algorithm for privacy-preserving data aggregation. The negotiation protocol in the framework of theMAS achieves a precise definition of database characteristics, such as schema, content, and privacy parameters, therefore increasing the efficiency of data collection for medical research and ensuring the privacy of patients.

EPFL2018

Computational Approach for Collapse Assessment of Concentrically Braced Frames in Seismic Regions

Dimitrios Lignos

This paper proposes a computational approach for the collapse assessment of concentrically braced frames (CBFs) subjected to earthquakes. Empirical formulations for modeling the postbuckling behavior and fracture of three main steel brace shapes that are commonly used in CBFs are developed. These formulations are based on extensive calibrations of a fiber-based steel brace model with available information from a recently developed steel brace database. As part of the same computational approach, the representation of strength and stiffness deterioration associated with plastic hinging in steel columns and gusset-plate beam-to-column connections is considered. Through a case study of a 12-story Special Concentrically Braced Frame (SCBF), the influence of classical damping on the collapse capacity of CBFs is investigated. It is demonstrated that when SCBFs attain a negative stiffness during an earthquake, their collapse capacity can be significantly overestimated, if viscous damping is based on a commonly employed Rayleigh assumption with initial stiffness approximation. It is shown that sidesway collapse of CBFs should be traced based on a combination of criteria that associate large story drift ratios and the story shear resistance of a CBF at the corresponding story drift ratios. © 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.

2014

Privacy - Preserving Data Exchange and Aggregation in Healthcare

Alevtina Dubovitskaya

EPFL2018

Privacy - Preserving Data Exchange and Aggregation in Healthcare

Calcul et tracé de l'aubage de la turbine Francis

Computational Approach for Collapse Assessment of Concentrically Braced Frames in Seismic Regions

Privacy - Preserving Data Exchange and Aggregation in Healthcare

Calcul et tracé de l'aubage de la turbine Francis

Computational Approach for Collapse Assessment of Concentrically Braced Frames in Seismic Regions