6,733 research outputs found
A Survey on Forensics and Compliance Auditing for Critical Infrastructure Protection
The broadening dependency and reliance that modern societies have on essential services
provided by Critical Infrastructures is increasing the relevance of their trustworthiness. However, Critical
Infrastructures are attractive targets for cyberattacks, due to the potential for considerable impact, not just
at the economic level but also in terms of physical damage and even loss of human life. Complementing
traditional security mechanisms, forensics and compliance audit processes play an important role in ensuring
Critical Infrastructure trustworthiness. Compliance auditing contributes to checking if security measures are
in place and compliant with standards and internal policies. Forensics assist the investigation of past security
incidents. Since these two areas significantly overlap, in terms of data sources, tools and techniques, they can
be merged into unified Forensics and Compliance Auditing (FCA) frameworks. In this paper, we survey the
latest developments, methodologies, challenges, and solutions addressing forensics and compliance auditing
in the scope of Critical Infrastructure Protection. This survey focuses on relevant contributions, capable of
tackling the requirements imposed by massively distributed and complex Industrial Automation and Control
Systems, in terms of handling large volumes of heterogeneous data (that can be noisy, ambiguous, and
redundant) for analytic purposes, with adequate performance and reliability. The achieved results produced
a taxonomy in the field of FCA whose key categories denote the relevant topics in the literature. Also, the
collected knowledge resulted in the establishment of a reference FCA architecture, proposed as a generic
template for a converged platform. These results are intended to guide future research on forensics and
compliance auditing for Critical Infrastructure Protection.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Computer-Aided Drug Design and Drug Discovery: A Prospective Analysis
In the dynamic landscape of drug discovery, Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) emerges as a transformative force, bridging the realms of biology and technology. This paper overviews CADDs historical evolution, categorization into structure-based and ligand-based approaches, and its crucial role in rationalizing and expediting drug discovery. As CADD advances, incorporating diverse biological data and ensuring data privacy become paramount. Challenges persist, demanding the optimization of algorithms and robust ethical frameworks. Integrating Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence amplifies CADDs predictive capabilities, yet ethical considerations and scalability challenges linger. Collaborative efforts and global initiatives, exemplified by platforms like Open-Source Malaria, underscore the democratization of drug discovery. The convergence of CADD with personalized medicine offers tailored therapeutic solutions, though ethical dilemmas and accessibility concerns must be navigated. Emerging technologies like quantum computing, immersive technologies, and green chemistry promise to redefine the future of CADD. The trajectory of CADD, marked by rapid advancements, anticipates challenges in ensuring accuracy, addressing biases in AI, and incorporating sustainability metrics. This paper concludes by highlighting the need for proactive measures in navigating the ethical, technological, and educational frontiers of CADD to shape a healthier, brighter future in drug discovery
The Monarch Initiative in 2024: an analytic platform integrating phenotypes, genes and diseases across species.
Bridging the gap between genetic variations, environmental determinants, and phenotypic outcomes is critical for supporting clinical diagnosis and understanding mechanisms of diseases. It requires integrating open data at a global scale. The Monarch Initiative advances these goals by developing open ontologies, semantic data models, and knowledge graphs for translational research. The Monarch App is an integrated platform combining data about genes, phenotypes, and diseases across species. Monarch\u27s APIs enable access to carefully curated datasets and advanced analysis tools that support the understanding and diagnosis of disease for diverse applications such as variant prioritization, deep phenotyping, and patient profile-matching. We have migrated our system into a scalable, cloud-based infrastructure; simplified Monarch\u27s data ingestion and knowledge graph integration systems; enhanced data mapping and integration standards; and developed a new user interface with novel search and graph navigation features. Furthermore, we advanced Monarch\u27s analytic tools by developing a customized plugin for OpenAI\u27s ChatGPT to increase the reliability of its responses about phenotypic data, allowing us to interrogate the knowledge in the Monarch graph using state-of-the-art Large Language Models. The resources of the Monarch Initiative can be found at monarchinitiative.org and its corresponding code repository at github.com/monarch-initiative/monarch-app
Brittle-viscous deformation cycles at the base of the seismogenic zone in the continental crust
The main goal of the study was to determine the dynamical cycle of ductile-brittle deformation and to characterise the fluid pathways at different scales of a brittle-viscous fault zone active at the base of the seismogenic crust. Object of analysis are samples from the sinistral strike-slip fault zone BFZ045 from Olkiluoto (SW Finland), located at the site of a deep geological repository for nuclear waste.
Combined microstructural analysis, electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and mineral chemistry were applied to reconstruct the variations in pressure, temperature, fluid pressure, and differential stress that mediated deformation and strain localization along BFZ045 across the BDTZ. Ductile deformation took place at 400-500° C and 3-4 kbar, and recrystallized grain size piezometry for quartz document a progressive increase in differential stress during mylonitization, from ca. 50 MPa to ca. 120 MPa. The increase in differential stress was localised towards the shear zone center, which was eventually overprinted by brittle deformation in a narrowing shear zone. Cataclastic deformation occurred under lower T conditions down to T ≥ 320° C and was not further overprinted by mylonitic creep. Porosity estimates were obtained through the combination of x-ray micro-computed tomography (µCT), mercury intrusion porosimetry, He pycnometry, and microstructural analysis. Low porosity values (0.8-4.4%) for different rock type, 2-20 µm pore size, representative of pore connectivity, and microstructural observation suggest a relationship to a dynamical cycle of fracturing and sealing mechanism, mostly controlled by ductile deformation. Similarly, the observation from fracture orientation analysis indicates that the mylonitic precursor of BFZ045 played an important role in the localization of the brittle deformation. This thesis highlights that the ductile-brittle deformation cycle in BFZ045 was controlled by transient oscillations in fluid pressure in a narrowing shear zone deforming at progressively higher differential stress during cooling
Configuration Management of Distributed Systems over Unreliable and Hostile Networks
Economic incentives of large criminal profits and the threat of legal consequences have pushed criminals to continuously improve their malware, especially command and control channels. This thesis applied concepts from successful malware command and control to explore the survivability and resilience of benign configuration management systems.
This work expands on existing stage models of malware life cycle to contribute a new model for identifying malware concepts applicable to benign configuration management. The Hidden Master architecture is a contribution to master-agent network communication. In the Hidden Master architecture, communication between master and agent is asynchronous and can operate trough intermediate nodes. This protects the master secret key, which gives full control of all computers participating in configuration management. Multiple improvements to idempotent configuration were proposed, including the definition of the minimal base resource dependency model, simplified resource revalidation and the use of imperative general purpose language for defining idempotent configuration.
Following the constructive research approach, the improvements to configuration management were designed into two prototypes. This allowed validation in laboratory testing, in two case studies and in expert interviews. In laboratory testing, the Hidden Master prototype was more resilient than leading configuration management tools in high load and low memory conditions, and against packet loss and corruption. Only the research prototype was adaptable to a network without stable topology due to the asynchronous nature of the Hidden Master architecture.
The main case study used the research prototype in a complex environment to deploy a multi-room, authenticated audiovisual system for a client of an organization deploying the configuration. The case studies indicated that imperative general purpose language can be used for idempotent configuration in real life, for defining new configurations in unexpected situations using the base resources, and abstracting those using standard language features; and that such a system seems easy to learn.
Potential business benefits were identified and evaluated using individual semistructured expert interviews. Respondents agreed that the models and the Hidden Master architecture could reduce costs and risks, improve developer productivity and allow faster time-to-market. Protection of master secret keys and the reduced need for incident response were seen as key drivers for improved security. Low-cost geographic scaling and leveraging file serving capabilities of commodity servers were seen to improve scaling and resiliency. Respondents identified jurisdictional legal limitations to encryption and requirements for cloud operator auditing as factors potentially limiting the full use of some concepts
Fluid-Rock Interactions from the Lithosphere to Earth’s Surface
Fluids can cycle and migrate through planetary bodies, transporting soluble ions and influencing physical properties of the surrounding rock or magma, such as fracture toughness, seismic wave velocity, melting point, viscosity, and more. Precipitated minerals, fluids trapped in inclusions, and free pore fluids can be used to constrain fluid provenance, mixing relationships, and paleoenvironmental information such as temperature, pressure, redox conditions, salinity, and pH. In my thesis, I discuss my research on topics pertaining to the geochemistry associated with fluid-rock interactions that occur from the depths of the lithospheric mantle to Earth’s surface. Broadly, these chapters address open questions pertaining to 1) the retention timescales and metasomatic overprinting of fluids sourced from the mantle in obducted peridotites, 2) the capacity for pedogenic Mg-carbonates to preserve palaeohydrological information with implications for Martian carbonates, and 3) the influences hydrous fluids have on lithospheric magmas and minerals.
Helium isotopes are arguably the best tracer for fluid sources in Earth materials at the planetary scale. ³He/⁴He ratios of the Earth’s 1) continental crust, 2) atmosphere, 3) upper mantle, and 4) core or deep isolated mantle (mantle plume source) vary by over two orders of magnitude, offering considerable dynamic range compared to measurement precision. While helium isotope signatures in Earth’s mantle have been determined almost exclusively by the analysis of helium retained in mantle xenoliths, phenocrysts, erupted glasses, and vent gases, this selection introduces a sampling bias towards fluids that have been transported to Earth’s surface by eruptive processes. In contrast, residual mantle peridotites take much longer to arrive at Earth’s surface and are therefore more susceptible to metasomatic processes that can overprint primary helium isotopic signatures. In Chapter 1, I use concentrations and isotopes of helium and argon along with concentrations of U and Th to place constraints on the sources and siting of helium retained in exhumed mantle peridotites collected from Twin Sisters Mountain of the Northern Cascades in Washington State, USA. Helium isotope ratios of peridotites from the Twin Sisters Mountain span from 0.8 to 6 times the atmospheric ratio (1RA=1.4*10⁻⁶ ³He/⁴He). Fluid inclusions in these peridotites capture a two-component mixture that included a mantle-like endmember (~6 RA) and a serpentinizing endmember (1.0 ± 0.5 RA) that is consistent with a mixture of surface-derived groundwater, leached crustal radiogenic helium and reworked mantle helium. While these components are not effectively isolated by extraction using vacuum crushing and powder fusion, step-heating analysis reveals that the serpentinizing endmember is released at lower temperatures (<1000°C) and the mantle-like endmember is released at higher temperatures. Results demonstrate that helium signatures can be retained in lithospheric peridotites against both diffusive loss and radiogenic ingrowth over at least 10⁸-year timescales but can be greatly modified by cryptic metasomatic processes during emplacement.
Mg-carbonates have become increasingly relevant in the scientific community due to their orbital and in situ detection on the Martian surface. Like Ca-carbonate on Earth, Martian Mg-carbonates may preserve paleoenvironmental information associated with their formation on Mars billions of years ago, shedding light on habitability. Yet, unlike Ca-carbonates, the capacity for Mg-carbonates to preserve paleoenvironmental information through trace element signatures associated with their source fluids has not been well established for surficial magnesite samples on Earth. In Chapter 2, I 1) develop a digestion protocol to selectively digest Mg-carbonates (magnesite ± dolomite) while obviating influences of contaminant phases and ions adsorbed to mineral surfaces, 2) validate a method to analyze trace elements with Mg-matrix by solution ICP-MS, and 3) apply these procedures to determine trace element concentrations of pedogenic Mg-carbonates sampled along a depth profile in the Kunwarara open pit magnesite mine in Queensland, Australia. Results from this study confirm that the method we implemented selectively digests magnesite ± dolomite. A relationship between negative Ce anomaly in the carbonates and Fe/Mn-oxides/hydroxides in corresponding host sediment collected along the depth profile demonstrates that pedogenic magnesites can capture redox gradients in the soil column. This finding implies that Ce anomaly in carbonates can potentially be used to place constraints on the paleo-redox conditions associated with Mg-carbonate formation on ancient Mars.
Numerous questions in Earth science depend on quantitative understanding of how elements fractionate during melting and crystallization. To name a few: assessment of how lithospheric fluids influence geodynamical processes, constraining mechanisms that led to the formation of the Earth’s continental crust, evaluation of elemental fluxes from the mantle to Earth's surface, calibration of a reliable crustal barometer, and gauging how magmatism and plate tectonics differed with the higher geothermal gradients of a younger Earth. MELTS thermodynamic software is a widely available free tool utilized by geoscientists to both test hypotheses and model the geochemistry of magmatic processes. However, minerals of the amphibole supergroup, although common in magmatic systems, rarely crystallize in MELTS simulations, even when well controlled experiments demonstrate that they should. The decrease in the Gibbs energy needed to stabilize amphibole in MELTS is often on the order of the configurational entropy contribution to the Gibbs energy associated with minor elements that are not present in any of the current amphibole solution models used in MELTS but are frequently incorporated in the amphibole crystal lattice. In Chapter 3, I outline a framework for a volume model for monoclinic amphiboles that can be used in an expanded amphibole solution model to be incorporated in MELTS software. A volume model is prerequisite to calibrating the other model terms because it accounts for differences in pressure among experimental constraints. The framework I develop extends the model to include minor components that are not present in existing versions of the MELTS amphibole models. I calibrate a preliminary model using a dataset composed of x-ray refinements that supply amphibole volume and site occupancy data. Results reveal regions in parameter space where data is limited and the sensitivity that model coefficients have to uncertainties in the data, suggesting that filtering the dataset to remove outliers may be necessary.</p
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