Advances in Information Security and Privacy

With the recent pandemic emergency, many people are spending their days in smart working and have increased their use of digital resources for both work and entertainment. The result is that the amount of digital information handled online is dramatically increased, and we can observe a significant increase in the number of attacks, breaches, and hacks. This Special Issue aims to establish the state of the art in protecting information by mitigating information risks. This objective is reached by presenting both surveys on specific topics and original approaches and solutions to specific problems. In total, 16 papers have been published in this Special Issue

Automated Analysis of X-ray Images for Cargo Security

Customs and border officers are overwhelmed by the hundreds of millions of cargo containers that constitute the backbone of the global supply chain, any one of which could contain a security- or customs-related threat. Searching for these threats is akin to searching for needles in an ever-growing field of haystacks. This thesis considers novel automated image analysis methods to automate or assist elements of cargo inspection. The four main contributions of this thesis are as follows. Methods are proposed for the measurement and correction of detector wobble in large-scale transmission radiography using Beam Position Detectors (BPDs). Wobble is estimated from BPD measurements using a Random Regression Forest (RRF) model, Bayesian fused with a prior estimate from an Auto-Regression (AR). Next, a series of image corrections are derived, and it is shown that 87% of image error due to wobble can be corrected. This is the first proposed method for correction of wobble in large-scale transmission radiography. A Threat Image Projection (TIP) framework is proposed, for training, probing and evaluating Automated Threat Detection (ATD) algorithms. The TIP method is validated experimentally, and a method is proposed to test whether algorithms can learn to exploit TIP artefacts. A system for Empty Container Verification (ECV) is proposed. The system, trained using TIP, is based on Random Forest (RF) classification of image patches according to fixed geometric features and container location. The method outperforms previous reported results, and is able to detect very small amounts of synthetically concealed smuggled contraband. Finally, a method for ATD is proposed, based on a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), trained from scratch using TIP, and exploits the material information encoded within dual-energy X-ray images to suppress false alarms. The system offers a 100-fold improvement in the false positive rate over prior work

Adaptive detection and tracking using multimodal information

This thesis describes work on fusing data from multiple sources of information, and focuses on two main areas: adaptive detection and adaptive object tracking in automated vision scenarios. The work on adaptive object detection explores a new paradigm in dynamic parameter selection, by selecting thresholds for object detection to maximise agreement between pairs of sources. Object tracking, a complementary technique to object detection, is also explored in a multi-source context and an efficient framework for robust tracking, termed the Spatiogram Bank tracker, is proposed as a means to overcome the difficulties of traditional histogram tracking. As well as performing theoretical analysis of the proposed methods, specific example applications are given for both the detection and the tracking aspects, using thermal infrared and visible spectrum video data, as well as other multi-modal information sources

Measuring Behavior 2018 Conference Proceedings

These proceedings contain the papers presented at Measuring Behavior 2018, the 11th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research. The conference was organised by Manchester Metropolitan University, in collaboration with Noldus Information Technology. The conference was held during June 5th – 8th, 2018 in Manchester, UK. Building on the format that has emerged from previous meetings, we hosted a fascinating program about a wide variety of methodological aspects of the behavioral sciences. We had scientific presentations scheduled into seven general oral sessions and fifteen symposia, which covered a topical spread from rodent to human behavior. We had fourteen demonstrations, in which academics and companies demonstrated their latest prototypes. The scientific program also contained three workshops, one tutorial and a number of scientific discussion sessions. We also had scientific tours of our facilities at Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy, and the nearby British Cycling Velodrome. We hope this proceedings caters for many of your interests and we look forward to seeing and hearing more of your contributions

Game Theory Relaunched

The game is on. Do you know how to play? Game theory sets out to explore what can be said about making decisions which go beyond accepting the rules of a game. Since 1942, a well elaborated mathematical apparatus has been developed to do so; but there is more. During the last three decades game theoretic reasoning has popped up in many other fields as well - from engineering to biology and psychology. New simulation tools and network analysis have made game theory omnipresent these days. This book collects recent research papers in game theory, which come from diverse scientific communities all across the world; they combine many different fields like economics, politics, history, engineering, mathematics, physics, and psychology. All of them have as a common denominator some method of game theory. Enjoy

A Survey on Intelligent Internet of Things: Applications, Security, Privacy, and Future Directions

peer reviewedThe rapid advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) have promoted a revolution in communication technology and offered various customer services. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have been exploited to facilitate IoT operations and maximize their potential in modern application scenarios. In particular, the convergence of IoT and AI has led to a new networking paradigm called Intelligent IoT (IIoT), which has the potential to significantly transform businesses and industrial domains. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of IIoT by investigating its significant applications in mobile networks, as well as its associated security and privacy issues. Specifically, we explore and discuss the roles of IIoT in a wide range of key application domains, from smart healthcare and smart cities to smart transportation and smart industries. Through such extensive discussions, we investigate important security issues in IIoT networks, where network attacks, confidentiality, integrity, and intrusion are analyzed, along with a discussion of potential countermeasures. Privacy issues in IIoT networks were also surveyed and discussed, including data, location, and model privacy leakage. Finally, we outline several key challenges and highlight potential research directions in this important area

Using eye Tracking to Further user Interface Design

The primary focus of this PhD dissertation is an eye-tracking experiment examining target-user performance on so-called dual-entry modes representing Danish taxation terminology, to determine whether terminological ontologies should be included in the user interface. The conventional concept-oriented articles of term banks, which describe the meaning of a term by means of text, are combined with concept-oriented diagrams, which represent the meaning of a term by means of a terminological ontology displaying the underlying concepts, relations and characteristics. The latter provides the target users with overview and allows for the inference of consistent definitions, which in principle should benefit the target user

NBS monograph

From Introduction: "This is the second in a series of reports concerned with research and development requirements and areas of continuing concern in the computer and information sciences and technologies.