Machine Learning to Improve Security Operations Centers

Since the onset of the internet, the world has embraced this new technology and used it to collectively advance Humanity. Companies have followed the trend from the physical to the digital world, taking with them all their associated value. In order to safeguard this value, security needed to evolve, with enterprises employing departments of highly trained professionals. Nevertheless, the ever increasing amount of information in need of evaluation by these professionals requires the deployment of automation techniques, aiding in data analysis and bulk task processing, to reduce detection time and as such improve mitigation. This work proposes a novel tool designed to help in attack detection and alert aggregation, by leveraging machine learning techniques. The proposed solution is described in full and showcased using real data from an example implementation.Desde o aparecimento da internet, esta nova tecnologia tem sido usada para avançar a Humanidade. O mercado seguiu as tendências, passando do mundo físico para o digital e levando consigo todo o seu valor associado. De forma a salvaguardar este valor, a segurança precisou de se adaptar, com empresas a dedicarem departamentos inteiros com esse objetivo. No entanto, a quantidade cada vez mais elevada de informação a analisar exige o desenvolvimento de técnicas automáticas de processamento de dados e execução de tarefas em massa, para diminuir o tempo de deteção de ataques permitindo uma mitigação mais ágil dos mesmos. Este trabalho propõe uma ferramenta projetada para ajudar na deteção de ataques e agregação de alertas, usando técnicas de inteligência artificial. A solução proposta é descrita na íntegra e apresentada usando dados reais aplicados a uma implementação de exemplo

Reporting an Experience on Design and Implementation of e-Health Systems on Azure Cloud

Electronic Health (e-Health) technology has brought the world with significant transformation from traditional paper-based medical practice to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based systems for automatic management (storage, processing, and archiving) of information. Traditionally e-Health systems have been designed to operate within stovepipes on dedicated networks, physical computers, and locally managed software platforms that make it susceptible to many serious limitations including: 1) lack of on-demand scalability during critical situations; 2) high administrative overheads and costs; and 3) in-efficient resource utilization and energy consumption due to lack of automation. In this paper, we present an approach to migrate the ICT systems in the e-Health sector from traditional in-house Client/Server (C/S) architecture to the virtualised cloud computing environment. To this end, we developed two cloud-based e-Health applications (Medical Practice Management System and Telemedicine Practice System) for demonstrating how cloud services can be leveraged for developing and deploying such applications. The Windows Azure cloud computing platform is selected as an example public cloud platform for our study. We conducted several performance evaluation experiments to understand the Quality Service (QoS) tradeoffs of our applications under variable workload on Azure.Comment: Submitted to third IEEE International Conference on Cloud and Green Computing (CGC 2013

Making the Transition to Virtual Methods in the Literacy Classroom: Reframing Teacher Education Practices

In response to the COVID 19 pandemic universities and colleges abruptly closed and teacher educators had little time to move instruction from face-to-face classrooms to digital learning environments. This sudden shift created a myriad of obstacles as instructors worked to retain pedagogically sound and effective instruction digitally—while also preparing novice teachers to teach online themselves. Adding another layer of complexity was prospective teachers’ lack of knowledge and hesitation regarding technology tools, as well as how to meaningfully integrate the tools into their teaching. Facing these challenges, we as literacy teacher educators drew upon effective methods of teacher education, literacy practices and digital literacy to rethink the way we design lessons and assignments for our literacy methods courses. The framework we created for restructuring the integration of technology into courses can be duplicated across disciplines and guide instructors to reconceptualize their use of tech tools to re-envision face-to-face and digital instruction to expand learning outcomes

Improving Environmental Sustainability: A Geolocation-Based Mobile Application to Optimize the Recycling Process

Environmental pollution caused by human activities is a global concern, and recycling is an effective strategy to reduce waste and minimize its negative impact on the environment, as these pollutants can have detrimental impact on ecosystems, human health, and the quality of life in general. Recycling avoids the accumulation of waste in landfills, which can contaminate soil, water, and air as well as reducing the production of new products. The objective of this work is to implement a mobile application to improve waste management by recycling companies. The Mobile-D methodology was used for the development of the project because it focuses on optimizing the efficiency and performance of mobile applications since it allows working in 5 phases which are: Exploration, Initialization, Production, Stabilization and Testing. In the first indicator (KPI-1), an improvement in customer retention was observed, with an increase of 114.29% in positive responses in the post-test. In the second indicator (KPI-2), there was a 39.92% decrease in response time, indicating a faster response in the collection service. In the third indicator (KPI-3), a significant increase of 86.86% in the volume of waste for recycling was observed. The results showed improvements in all indicators, indicating a positive impact of the implementation of the mobile application on waste management by the companies in the sector

Edge IoT Driven Framework for Experimental Investigation and Computational Modeling of Integrated Food, Energy, and Water System

As the global population soars from today’s 7.3 billion to an estimated 10 billion by 2050, the demand for Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) resources is expected to more than double. Such a sharp increase in demand for FEW resources will undoubtedly be one of the biggest global challenges. The management of food, energy, water for smart, sustainable cities involves a multi-scale problem. The interactions of these three dynamic infrastructures require a robust mathematical framework for analysis. Two critical solutions for this challenge are focused on technology innovation on systems that integrate food-energy-water and computational models that can quantify the FEW nexus. Information Communication Technology (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are innovations that will play critical roles in addressing the FEW nexus stress in an integrated way. The use of sensors and IoT devices will be essential in moving us to a path of more productivity and sustainability. Recent advancements in IoT, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), and ICT are one lever that can address some of the environmental, economic, and technical challenges and opportunities in this sector. This dissertation focuses on quantifying and modeling the nexus by proposing a Leontief input-output model unique to food-energy-water interacting systems. It investigates linkage and interdependency as demand for resource changes based on quantifiable data. The interdependence of FEW components was measured by their direct and indirect linkage magnitude for each interaction. This work contributes to the critical domain required to develop a unique integrated interdependency model of a FEW system shying away from the piece-meal approach. The physical prototype for the integrated FEW system is a smart urban farm that is optimized and built for the experimental portion of this dissertation. The prototype is equipped with an automated smart irrigation system that uses real-time data from wireless sensor networks to schedule irrigation. These wireless sensor nodes are allocated for monitoring soil moisture, temperature, solar radiation, humidity utilizing sensors embedded in the root area of the crops and around the testbed. The system consistently collected data from the three critical sources; energy, water, and food. From this physical model, the data collected was structured into three categories. Food data consists of: physical plant growth, yield productivity, and leaf measurement. Soil and environment parameters include; soil moisture and temperature, ambient temperature, solar radiation. Weather data consists of rainfall, wind direction, and speed. Energy data include voltage, current, watts from both generation and consumption end. Water data include flow rate. The system provides off-grid clean PV energy for all energy demands of farming purposes, such as irrigation and devices in the wireless sensor networks. Future reliability of the off-grid power system is addressed by investigating the state of charge, state of health, and aging mechanism of the backup battery units. The reliability assessment of the lead-acid battery is evaluated using Weibull parametric distribution analysis model to estimate the service life of the battery under different operating parameters and temperatures. Machine learning algorithms are implemented on sensor data acquired from the experimental and physical models to predict crop yield. Further correlation analysis and variable interaction effects on crop yield are investigated

New trends in marketing: the impact in convenience store's atmosphere

The decision to apply atmospheric elements to the store environment has been implemented by many managers with favorable outcomes for the company and the clients. Despite the usual application of the traditional stimulus (e.g. color, light, music, scent) the effect of implementing new trends in marketing on the retail space remains unclear. These future trends include hybrid stores, interactive screens, new payment methods, customer-employee interaction, revolving decors, retailtainment, storytelling, co-creation, reverse channels and store mood zones. The effects of these trends become even more unpredictable if these are implemented in the convenience store sector. Hence, the goal of this master’s dissertation is to validate the impact of the new trends in marketing in convenience store’s atmosphere to impact the Portuguese customers. This dissertation reached the established goal through the study of the relevant literature and empirical application. Based on case studies from the literature, the research questions were formulated. These research questions consider the impact of hybrid stores, interactive screens, new payment methods, customer-employee interaction, revolving decor and new products, services and retail formats on the convenience store environment. Furthermore, the empirical research included an exploratory and qualitative methodology (focus group and virtual reality). The following results were confirmed in this study: displaying a parapharmacy showcase will increase the sales of the store (hybrid stores); an employee’s positive attitude will increase the satisfaction of the experience and affect the loyalty of the customer (customer-employee interaction); selling healthy food will increase the shopping intentions; the existence of a printer/copy machine will increase the interest of going to a convenience store and a fresh and natural convenience store concept will attract more customers (new retail products, services and retail formats). Other trends such as the interactive menu screen and the revolving decor (digital signage) were considered with some potential even though the insights were not sufficient to validate the research questions. The rest of the research questions were not conclusive or rejected by the empirical findings. Despite the shortcomings of this study, convenience store retail managers in Portugal must, therefore, understand the potential of these solutions towards convenience stores, but must also always consider the consumption habits of Portuguese consumers.Estímulos sensoriais em ambiente de loja (cor, luz, música e aroma), têm sido largamente implementados por muitos gestores trazendo resultados bastante positivos tanto para as empresas como para os clientes que entram na loja. Pelo contrário se considerarmos as novas tendências de marketing estas acabam por ainda não ser muito abordadas na atmosfera de loja. Estas novas tendências incluem lojas híbridas, ecrãs interativos, novos métodos de pagamentos, relação empregado-cliente, decoração rotativa, "retailtainment", "storytelling", co-criação, canais invertidos e criação de vários ambientes em loja. O impacto destas novas tendências é ainda menos estudado no sector das lojas de conveniência. Assim sendo, o principal objetivo desta dissertação é validar o impacto destas novas tendências de marketing no contexto do ambiente das lojas de conveniência, em especial para os consumidores portugueses. A questão de partida foi definida após um estudo intensivo da literatura científica e aplicação empírica existente sobre o tema. As questões de investigação foram definidas tendo por base estudos de caso das novas tendências existentes na literatura. As questões de investigação pretendem avaliar o impacto de algumas tendências num ambiente de loja de conveniência, tais como lojas híbridas, ecrãs interativos, novos métodos de pagamento, interação entre empregados e clientes, decoração rotativa e novos produtos, serviços e formatos de retalhos. O método adotado para responder a estas questões foi uma metodologia exploratória e qualitativa ("focus group" e experimentação de realidade virtual). Foram aprovadas as seguintes questões de investigação: a exposição de uma vitrine de parafarmácia irá aumentar as vendas da loja (lojas híbridas); uma atitude positiva por parte dos empregados aumenta a satisfação do cliente e influencia e lealdade do mesmo (interação entre empregados e clientes); vender comida saudável numa loja de conveniência aumenta as intenções de consumo de quem visita a loja; a existência de uma máquina de fotocópias aumenta o interesse a ir a uma loja de conveniência e por fim um novo conceito de loja de conveniência com produtos frescos e naturais vai atrair mais consumidores (novos produtos, serviços e formatos de retalhos). Outras tendências de marketing apresentadas na parte empírica, como menus interativos e decoração rotativa (sinalização digital) foram consideradas com algum potencial, apesar do "feedback" dos participantes não ter sido totalmente conclusivo. As restantes questões de investigação do estudo foram rejeitadas ou tiveram resultados inconclusivos.Apesar das limitações deste estudo, os gestores das cadeias de lojas de conveniência em Portugal devem capitalizar estas soluções para as suas lojas, não esquecendo os hábitos de consumo do consumidor Português

Raising The Level Of Abstraction In Online Education: The Context

A commonly accepted definition of online learning is that students have access to learning experiences in: time, place, pace, learning style, content, assessment, and pathways (Chen, 2003). Although this is true, there is a considerable concern about the level of abstraction involved in online education. Critics of flexible learning call it just another fad (Zemsky & Massy, 2004). These criticisms are founded in claims that online learning failed to launch a pedagogical revolution or attract students in masses. Further, some argue that it is a training and not educational tool.  With all the buzz of successes and failures, flexible learning will continue to have an increasingly important role in higher education. Given the many fallacies about online learning, this paper argues that flexibility and transferability are prevailing traits in this explosion of knowledge. There is, simultaneously, a growing concern that online or flexible education has not raised learners’ level of abstraction. This paper concludes with a call for further investigation into flexibility/transferability and the effectiveness of institutions to align faculty development models and infrastructure with the new science of learning as well as to equip faculty with techniques to enhance level of abstraction