Elena Ferrari

Università degli Studi dell'Insubria, Department of Theoretical and Applied Science, Faculty Member

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Address: DiSTA, University of Insubria, via Mazzini 5, 21100 Varese (Italy)

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Naim Kapucu

University of Central Florida

Manuel David Masseno

Instituto Politécnico de Beja

Kostas Zafiropoulos

University of Macedonia

Remo Caponi

University of Cologne

Aswani Kumar Cherukuri

VIT University

Noe Cornago

University of the Basque Country, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

Corey Brettschneider

Brown University

Paul Tobin

Dublin Institute of Technology

Roshan Chitrakar

Nepal College of Information Technology

Lev Manovich

Graduate Center of the City University of New York

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Papers by Elena Ferrari

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An Integrated Approach to Rating and Filtering Web Content

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005

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CiVeDi

ACM SIGMOD Record, 2004

This paper presents CiVedi, a scalable system providing a flexible and customizable virtual envir... more This paper presents CiVedi, a scalable system providing a flexible and customizable virtual environment for displaying multimedia contents. Using CiVeDi, both the final users and the exhibition curators can personalize the content of the visit as well as the visit appearance and its duration. The proposed solution aims to be used transparently over different media objects either stored into a database or dynamically collected from online digital libraries.

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Extending the ODMG object model with time

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1998

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Combining access control and trust negotiations in an On-line Social Network

Proceedings of the 6th International ICST Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications, Worksharing, 2010

Protection of On-line Social Networks (OSNs) resources has become a primary need since today OSNs... more Protection of On-line Social Networks (OSNs) resources has become a primary need since today OSNs are the hugest repository of personal information on the Web. This has resulted in the definition of some access control models tailored to the protection of OSN resources. One of the key parameter on which access control decisions in OSNs should be based is represented by the trust between OSN users. A wellknown approach for the management of trust relationships is represented by trust negotiations [1], [2]. In this paper, we show how access control and trust negotiation can be combined in a framework for the protection of OSN resources. Moreover, we show how the outcome of a trust negotiation can be exploited to dynamically adjust the trust level between OSN users.

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A rule-based policy language for selective trust propagation in social networks

Databases and Social Networks, 2011

Abstract Information spreading is a important topic in the area of Online Social Networks (OSNs).... more Abstract Information spreading is a important topic in the area of Online Social Networks (OSNs). Typically, information flows in a careless way among directly connected members of the OSN (&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; friends&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;). In this way, it is possible that sensitive information is unintentionally leaked to not entitled or un-trusted members. A well-known approach for the management of trust relationships is represented by trust negotiations. In an OSN, trust negotiations can be exploited in a novel way, that is, their outcome can be used to dynamically adjust the trust ...

MaX: an access control system for digital libraries and the Web

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An access control system for digital libraries and the Web: the MaX prototype demonstration

The goal of this demonstration is to present the main features of MaX, a system enforcing access ... more The goal of this demonstration is to present the main features of MaX, a system enforcing access control to Web documents. This system has been developed at the Dipartimento di Scienze dell&amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;Informazione of the University of Milano in the framework of the European project EUFORBIA, and implements the Milano Model, an access control mechanism conceived for Digital Library (DL) and Web environments.

A constraint-based approach for the authoring of multi-topic multimedia presentations

Synchronized multimedia applications play an important role in a Digital Library environment, sin... more Synchronized multimedia applications play an important role in a Digital Library environment, since they allow one to efficiently disseminate knowledge among differently skilled users through an approach which is more direct than the classic 'static' documents. In this paper, we propose a new authoring approach based on an innovative presentation structure and a new class of contentbased constraints. Thanks to a flexible heuristic process, such features allow the author to easily combine several multimedia objects into a multi-topic presentation, whose different contents can be freely chosen by end users according to their preferences or skills.

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Rule-based access control for social networks

Web-based social networks (WBSNs) are online communities where participants can establish relatio... more Web-based social networks (WBSNs) are online communities where participants can establish relationships and share resources across the Web with other users. In recent years, several WBSNs have been adopting Semantic Web technologies, such as FOAF, for representing users' data and relationships, making it possible to enforce information interchange across multiple WBSNs. Despite its advantages in terms of information diffusion, this raised the need of giving content owners more control on the distribution of their resources, which may be accessed by a community far wider than they expected. In this paper, we present an access control model for WBSNs, where policies are expressed as constraints on the type, depth, and trust level of existing relationships. Relevant features of our model are the use of certificates for granting relationships' authenticity, and the client-side enforcement of access control according to a rule-based approach, where a subject requesting to access an object must demonstrate that it has the rights of doing that.

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The quality social network: a collaborative environment for personalizing Web access

In this paper, we present a collaborative social networking environment, referred to as Quality S... more In this paper, we present a collaborative social networking environment, referred to as Quality Social Network (QSN), which enhances the social tagging paradigm by using it as a basis to evaluate the quality of Web resources, on the basis of the user preferences specified by each QSN member. Such features give end users the ability of being aware of the "quality" of the resources they are accessing, based on the opinions of the members of their community, and of being informed whether such resources can be safely used, according to the requirements specified by end users themselves. Besides illustrating the main characteristics of the QSN and its architecture, we describe its prototype implementation, carried out in the framework of the QUATRO Plus EU project, and its application to a use case scenario, involving groups of teenagers from three different European countries, acting as Youth Panels of the Safer Internet EU Programme.

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Combining Social Networks and Semantic Web Technologies for Personalizing Web Access

The original purpose of Web metadata was to protect endusers from possible harmful content and to... more The original purpose of Web metadata was to protect endusers from possible harmful content and to simplify search and retrieval. However they can also be exploited in more enhanced applications, such as Web access personalization on the basis of end-users' preferences. In order to achieve this, it is however necessary to address several issues. One of the most relevant is how to assess the trustworthiness of Web metadata. In this paper, we discuss how such issue can be addressed through the use of collaborative and Semantic Web technologies. The system we propose is based on a Web-based Social Network, where members are able not only to specify labels, but also to rate existing labels. Both labels and ratings are then used to assess the trustworthiness of resources' descriptions and to enforce Web access personalization.

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Private Relationships in Social Networks

2007 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Data Engineering Workshop, 2007

Current social networks implement very simple protection mechanisms, according to which a user ca... more Current social networks implement very simple protection mechanisms, according to which a user can state whether his/her personal data, relationships, and resources should be either public or accessible only by him/herself (or, at most, by users with whom he/she has a direct relationship). This is not enough, in that there is the need of more flexible mechanisms, making a user able to decide which network participants are authorized to access his/her resources and personal information. With this aim, in [2] we have proposed an access control model where authorized users are denoted based on the relationships they participate in. Nonetheless, we believe that this is just a first step towards a more comprehensive privacy framework for social networks. Indeed, besides users' resources and personal data, also users' relationships may convey sensitive information. For this reason, in this paper we focus on relationship protection, by proposing a strategy exploiting cryptographic techniques to enforce a selective dissemination of information concerning relationships across a social network.

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Web Content Filtering

Web and Information Security

The need to filter online information in order to protect users from possible harmful content can... more The need to filter online information in order to protect users from possible harmful content can be considered as one of the most compelling social issues derived from the transformation of the Web into a public information space. Despite that Web rating and filtering systems have been developed and made publicly available quite early, no effective approach has been established so far, due to the inadequacy of the proposed solutions. Web filtering is then a challenging research area, needing the definition and enforcement of new strategies, considering both the current limitations and the future developments of Web technologies-in particular, the upcoming Semantic Web. In this chapter, we provide an overview of how Web filtering issues have been addressed by the available systems, bringing in relief both their advantages and shortcomings, and outlining future trends. As an example of how a more accurate and flexible filtering can be enforced, we devote the second part of this chapter to describing a multi-strategy approach, of which the main characteristics are the integration of both list-and metadata-based 701 E.

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Object-Oriented Databases

Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 1999

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A General Framework for Web Content Filtering

World Wide Web, 2009

Web content filtering is a means to make end-users aware of the 'quality' of Web resources by eva... more Web content filtering is a means to make end-users aware of the 'quality' of Web resources by evaluating their contents and/or characteristics against users' preferences. Although they can be used for a variety of purposes, Web content filtering tools are mainly deployed as a service for parental control purposes, and for regulating the access to Web content by users connected to the networks of enterprises, libraries, schools, etc. Current Web filtering tools are based on well established techniques, such as data mining and firewall blocking, and they typically cater to the filtering requirements of very specific end-user categories. Therefore, what is lacking is a unified filtering framework able to support all the possible application domains, and making it possible to enforce interoperability among the different filtering approaches and the systems based on them. In this paper, a multi-strategy approach is described, which integrates the available techniques and focuses on the use of metadata for rating and filtering Web information. Such an approach consists of a filtering meta-model, referred to as MFM (Multistrategy Filtering Model), which provides a general representation of the Web content filtering domain, independently from its possible applications, and of two prototype implementations, partially carried out in the framework of the EU projects EUFOR-BIA and QUATRO, and designed for different application domains: user protection and Web quality assurance, respectively.

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Navigating Through Multiple Temporal Granularity Objects

Workshops, 2001

Managing and relating temporal information at differ- ent time units is an important issue in man... more Managing and relating temporal information at differ- ent time units is an important issue in many applications and research areas, among them temporal object-oriented databases. Due to the semantic richness of the object- oriented data model, the introduction of multiple temporal granularities in such a model poses several interesting is- sues. In particular, object-oriented query languages pro- vide a navigational

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A Decentralized Security Framework for Web-Based Social Networks

International Journal of Information Security and Privacy, 2008

The wide diffusion and usage of social networking Web sites in the last years have made publicly ... more The wide diffusion and usage of social networking Web sites in the last years have made publicly available a huge amount of possible sensitive information, which can be used by third-parties with purposes different from the ones of the owners of such information. Currently, this issue has been addressed by enforcing into Web-based Social Networks (WBSNs) very simple protection mechanisms, or by using anonymization techniques, thanks to which it is possible to hide the identity of WBSN members while performing analysis on social network data. However, we believe that further solutions are needed, to allow WBSN members themselves to decide who can access their personal information and resources. To cope with this issue, in this article we illustrate a decentralized security framework for WBSNs, which provide both access control and privacy protection mechanisms. In our system, WBSN members can denote who is authorized to access the resources they publish and the relationships they par...

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Content-based filtering of Web documents: the MaX system and the EUFORBIA project

International Journal of Information Security, 2003

Internet filtering has particular requirements which traditional access control approaches cannot... more Internet filtering has particular requirements which traditional access control approaches cannot satisfy. In this paper, we present a multi-strategy filtering model tailored specifically to both digital library and Web environments whose key features are the support for credential and content-based filtering and its full integration with standard Internet rating systems. Moreover, we describe the prototype system implementing our model and developed in the framework of the European project EUFORBIA.

Navigational accesses in a temporal object model

IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 1998

The management of temporal data is a crucial requirement for many data intensive applications. A ... more The management of temporal data is a crucial requirement for many data intensive applications. A considerable research eort have been devoted in the past years to query languages for temporal data in the context of the relational model. Recently, temporal object-oriented data models have been proposed. In this paper, we focus on the navigational approach to querying object-oriented databases and show how this approach can be extended to a temporal context. In particular, we address issues related to the correctness of such navigational accesses.

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Hierarchical categorisation of tags for delicious

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An Integrated Approach to Rating and Filtering Web Content

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005

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CiVeDi

ACM SIGMOD Record, 2004

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Extending the ODMG object model with time

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1998

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