Trends and concerns in digital cartography

CISRG discussion paper ;

Technology assessment of advanced automation for space missions

Six general classes of technology requirements derived during the mission definition phase of the study were identified as having maximum importance and urgency, including autonomous world model based information systems, learning and hypothesis formation, natural language and other man-machine communication, space manufacturing, teleoperators and robot systems, and computer science and technology

Трансформация биогеохимических потоков ртути в экосистемах заброшенных сельхозугодий центра России

Using the methodology of critical loads, we studied the geographic peculiarities of changes in the natural stability of landscapes to mercury contamination through the atmosphere as a result of cropland abandonment; published the map of abandoned cropland in the central part of the Ryazan oblast as of 2015 (the materials are the courtesy of A.V. Prishchepov); identified and prioritized the main regional industrial emitters of mercury; estimated the average annual emission of Hg by industrial facilities of various types based on the specific features of the production; and showed that the most contrasting impact is associated with the activity of a cement manufacturer (a combination of notable amounts of involatile Hg emission and the relatively low height of industrial chimneys (120 m)); and found that the colonization of abandoned land with woody vegetation covers only small-area windless regions of the forest already existing in the territory, which determines the overall deterioration of resistance to Hg supply. We also noted that abandoned lands feature favorable conditions for the sedimentation of anthropogenic pollutants migrating in the atmosphere, which among other factors causes an increase in the concentration of biologically available forms of Hg in post-agrogenic soils by 1.5~1.8 times compared to the arable land and normal soil under forest ecosystems. We detected a local but contrasting anomaly of Hg in the tissues of post-agrogenic woody plants, where the mercury content exceeded the background levels by 20–200 times. It was noted that post-agrogenic ecosystems are less resilient to anthropogenic chemical pollution and their adaptation mechanisms are more likely to fail. In the study of the dispersion halos of technogenic Hg, the wood, bark, and branches of birch, being a common plant component of abandoned lands, should be recognized as the indicating biological objects.С использованием методологии критических нагрузок изучены географические особенности изменения естественной устойчивости ландшафтов к ртутному загрязнению через атмосферу под влиянием забрасывания сельхозугодий. Публикуется карта заброшенных земель в центре Рязанской области по состоянию на 2015 г. (материалы любезно предоставлены А.В. Прищеповым). Установлены и ранжированы по степени приоритетности основные региональные промышленные эмитенты ртути. Рассчитана среднегодовая эмиссия Hg промышленными объектами различных типов исходя из специфики производства. Показано, что наиболее контрастное импактное воздействие связано с деятельностью цементного предприятия (сочетание заметных объемов эмиссии Hg в труднолетучих формах со сравнительно небольшой высотой промышленных труб – 120 м). Выявлено, что зарастание заброшенных земель древесной растительностью охватывает лишь небольшие по площади ветровые тени уже имеющихся на территории лесных массивов, что определяет общее снижение устойчивости к поступлению Hg. Также отмечено, что на заброшенных землях складываются благоприятные условия для осаждения техногенных загрязнителей, мигрирующих в атмосфере, что в числе иных факторов приводит к росту концентраций биодоступных форм Hg в постагрогенных почвах в 1,5-1,8 раза относительно пашни и зональных почв под лесными экосистемами. Выявлена локальная, но контрастная аномалия Hg в тканях постагрогенной древесной растительности, где содержание ртути превышает фоновые уровни в 20-200 раз. Отмечено, что постагрогенные экосистемы обладают сниженной резистентностью к антропогенному химическому загрязнению и высокой вероятностью срыва адаптационных механизмов. Индикаторными биообъектами при изучении ореолов рассеяния техногенной Hg следует признать древесину, кору и ветви березы — распространенного растительного компонента заброшенных земель

Differentiated Intrusion Detection and SVDD-based Feature Selection for Anomaly Detection

Most of existing intrusion detection techniques treat all types of attacks equally without any differentiation of the risk they pose to the information system. However, certain types of attacks are more harmful than others and their detection is critical to protection of the system. This study proposes a novel differentiated anomaly detection method that can more precisely detect intrusions of specific types of attacks. Although many researchers have been developed many efficient intrusion detection methods, fewer efforts have been made to extract effective features for host-based intrusion detection. In this study, we propose a new framework based on new viewpoints about system activities to extract host-based features, which can guide further exploration for new features. There are few feature selection methods for anomaly detections although lots of studies have been done for the feature selection both in classification and regression problems. This study proposes new support vector data description (SVDD)-based feature selection methods such as SVDD-R2-recursive feature elimination (RFE), SVDD-RFE and SVDDGradient method. Concrete experiments with both simulated and the Defense advanced research projects agency (DARPA) datasets shows promising performance of the proposed methods. These achievements in this dissertation could significantly contribute to anomaly detection field. In addition, the proposed differentiated detection and SVDD-based feature selection methods would benefit even other application areas beyond intrusion detectio

Development of Railroad Highway Grade Crossing Consolidation Rating Formula

The goal of this project was to provide an objective methodology to support public agencies and railroads in making decisions related to consolidation of at-grade rail-highway crossings. The project team developed a weighted-index method and accompanying Microsoft Excel spreadsheet based tool to help evaluate and prioritize all public highway-rail grade crossings systematically from a possible consolidation impact perspective. Factors identified by stakeholders as critical were traffic volume, heavy-truck traffic volume, proximity to emergency medical services, proximity to schools, road system, and out-of-distance travel. Given the inherent differences between urban and rural locations, factors were considered, and weighted, differently, based on crossing location. Application of a weighted-index method allowed for all factors of interest to be included and for these factors to be ranked independently, as well as weighted according to stakeholder priorities, to create a single index. If priorities change, this approach also allows for factors and weights to be adjusted. The prioritization generated by this approach may be used to convey the need and opportunity for crossing consolidation to decision makers and stakeholders. It may also be used to quickly investigate the feasibility of a possible consolidation. Independently computed crossing risk and relative impact of consolidation may be integrated and compared to develop the most appropriate treatment strategies or alternatives for a highway-rail grade crossing. A crossing with limited- or low-consolidation impact but a high safety risk may be a prime candidate for consolidation. Similarly, a crossing with potentially high-consolidation impact as well as high risk may be an excellent candidate for crossing improvements or grade separation. The results of the highway-rail grade crossing prioritization represent a consistent and quantitative, yet preliminary, assessment. The results may serve as the foundation for more rigorous or detailed analysis and feasibility studies. Other pertinent site-specific factors, such as safety, maintenance costs, economic impacts, and location-specific access and characteristics should be considered

Extending the Exposure Score of Web Browsers by Incorporating CVSS

When browsing the Internet, HTTP headers enable both clients and servers send extra data in their requests or responses such as the User-Agent string. This string contains information related to the sender’s device, browser, and operating system. Yet its content differs from one browser to another. Despite the privacy and security risks of User-Agent strings, very few works have tackled this problem. Our previous work proposed giving Internet browsers exposure relative scores to aid users to choose less intrusive ones. Thus, the objective of this work is to extend our previous work through: first, conducting a user study to identify its limitations. Second, extending the exposure score via incorporating data from the NVD. Third, providing a full implementation, instead of a limited prototype. The proposed system: assigns scores to users’ browsers upon visiting our website. It also suggests alternative safe browsers, and finally it allows updating the back-end database with a click of a button. We applied our method to a data set of more than 52 thousand unique browsers. Our performance and validation analysis show that our solution is accurate and efficient. The source code and data set are publicly available here [4].</p

Global Food Fraud Trends and Their Mitigation Strategies: The Case of Some Dairy Products: A Review

This review was initiated with the objective of assessing global food fraud trends and their mitigation strategies with special emphasis on some dairy products. Different aspects of food fraud such as the types of food fraud (adulteration, tampering, counterfeiting, artificial enhancement, use of non-declared, unapproved, or banned biocides, misrepresentation of nutritional content, fraudulent labeling claims and removal of authentic constituents etc), global food fraud trends, why is food fraud a growing concern, incidents of food fraud, top ten food fraud vulnerable food ingredients and milk and milk based products fraud and their mitigation strategies to address food fraud were discussed. The increasing trend in food fraud practices led to food safety concerns; which led companies to build brands on reputable basis for safety and quality. In the meantime markets grew from local to global. This led to complexity of supply chains and this has aggravated food fraud. Based on this, it was concluded that fighting food fraud and adulteration remains a race between the criminals committing food fraud and the scientists developing new methods to uncover food fraud, frequent analysis and quality control measures  are essential to create awareness among the public about malpractices in food  supply chains, consumers must be aware about the kind of food they consume, the regulatory authorities should realize and practice frequent inspection of the market to check whether food products meets the minimum legal standards. It is also recommended that academic institutions should shift from intervention and respond to prevention, define the value of technology and enforcement of food laws and education in behavioral sciences and criminology. The industry’s food fraud prevention focus has to be holistic and has to build consumer confidence, industry has to engage governments in request for comments and risk assessment. The governments has to focus broadly on product fraud not just adulterants, define food fraud in laws not just in regulations or guidance documents, create and engage public private partnership forum and risk assessment. Keywords: Global, Food, Fraud, mitigation, safety, dairy, product