Graph-based Temporal Analysis in Digital Forensics

Establishing a timeline as part of a digital forensics investigation is a vital part of understanding the order in which system events occurred. However, most digital forensics tools present timelines as histogram or as raw artifacts. Consequently, digital forensics examiners are forced to rely on manual, labor-intensive practices to reconstruct system events. Current digital forensics analysis tools are at their technological limit with the increasing storage and complexity of data. A graph-based timeline can present digital forensics evidence in a structure that can be immediately understood and effortlessly focused. This paper presents the Temporal Analysis Integration Management Application (TAIMA) to enhance digital forensics analysis via information visualization (infovis) techniques. TAIMA is a prototype application that provides a graph-based timeline for event reconstruction using abstraction and visualization techniques. A workflow illustration and pilot usability study provided evidence that TAIMA assisted digital forensics specialists in identifying key system events during digital forensics analysis

Ground-breaking: Scientific and sonic perceptions of environmental change in the African Sahel

Soils surrounding ancient settlements can hold evidence of the activities of past societies. To seek an understanding of how past societies have reacted and contributed to environmental change requires many data sources. The real-time audiovisual installation Ground-breaking problematises the presentation of such data gained through the image-analysis of soil materials. These data are used to connote environmental events and consequent human responses. Combining these data with audiovisual synthesis and environmental recordings, a basis for developing conceptualizations of new locales undergoing environmental change is presented; the visual and sonic narratives developed allowing the art-science interface to be explored

Historic landscape management: a validation of quantitative soil thin-section analyses

The archaeological interpretation of past land management practices can be greatly enhanced through examination of soil thin sections. Features relating to manuring practice are among those key to interpreting agricultural practices. The sources and the pro¬cesses leading to the distribution of these manure materials may further improve knowledge of the past landscape utilisation. The use of quantitative analyses to examine soil thin sections opens the possibility of considering these relationships between manured areas in greater detail and to extract more subtle spatial and temporal changes in past management. In this study the validation of this methodology has been tested with quantitative image analysis methods used to examine manure inputs to a well-documented historical landscape of Papa Stour, Shetland, where intensive manuring has been practised until the 1960s. By using both historic and ethnographic evidence to validate the image analysis protocol, differences in spatial and temporal distribution are examined for the practices of manuring with both fuel residues and with turf. The validation of the hypotheses expected from ethnographic and historical data that quantitative soils-based evidence allows the definition of variations in manuring strategies and provides a more secure basis from which to interpret manuring management strategies in archaeological landscapes

Multiple Kinase Involvement in the Regulation of Vascular Growth

The initial discovery of protein phosphorylation as a regulatory mechanism for the control of glycogen metabolism has led to intense interest of protein phosphorylation in regulating protein function (Cohen et al., 2001). Kinases play a variety of roles in many physiological processes within cells and represent one of the largest families in the human genome with over 500 members comprising protein serine/threonine, tyrosine, and dual-specificity kinases (Manning et al., 2002). Phosphorylation of proteins is one of the most significant signal transduction mechanisms which regulate intracellular processes such as transport, growth, metabolism, apoptosis, cystoskeletal arrangement and hormone responses (Bononi et al., 2011; Heidenreich et al., 1991; Manning et al., 2002; Pawson et al., 2000). As such, abnormal phosphorylation of proteins can be either a cause or a consequence of disease. Kinases are regulated by activator and inhibitor proteins, ligand binding, and phosphorylation by other proteins or via autophosphorylation (Hanks et al., 1991; Hug et al., 1993; Scott, 1991; Taylor et al., 1990; Taylor et al., 1992). Since kinases play key functions in many cellular processes, they represent an attractive target for therapeutic interventions in many disease states such as cancer, inflammation, diabetes and arthritis (Cohen et al., 2010; Fry et al., 1994; Karin, 2005; Mayers et al., 2005). In particular, the serine/threonine family of kinases comprises approximately 125 of the 500 family of kinases and includes the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)-dependent protein kinase (PKA), the cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP)-dependent protein kinase (PKG), and protein kinase C (PKC). These kinases are implicated in the regulation of cell growth and are the focus of this current study.We would like to acknowledge Jonathan C. Fox and Patti Shaver for assistance with isolation and culture of rat primary vascular smooth muscle cells. This project was supported by Award Number R01HL081720 from the National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), by ARRA Award Number R01HL081720-03S2, and by Post-doctoral Research Supplement Award Number R01HL081720-05S1 from the NHLBI

Human responses, resilience and vulnerability : an interdisciplinary approach to understanding past farm success and failure in Mývatnssveit, northern Iceland

This thesis presents a new perspective on the study of past farm success and failure; it builds on the concepts of resilience and vulnerability to construct a theoretical framework which integrates environmental, historical and ethnographical data. The basic framework establishes that the resilience or vulnerability of a social-ecological system is a function of three factors: i) the exposure of the system to external (environmental) stresses, ii) the sensitivity of the system to these stresses and iii) the ability of the human component of the system to respond to them. The research focused on the component of human capacity of response (the sum of coping and adaptive capacity) within this framework. The temporal scale of the study was the 18th century, although reference is made to earlier periods for comparison. The location of the study area was Mývatnssveit, a livestock-based farming community in northern Iceland, while the spatial scale of the study is that of individual farms in the area. The results showed that successful farms had a higher capacity of response than failed farms, and that this was conferred by a greater availability and quality of resources, including human resources, natural resources and productive resources (those directly involved in agriculture). Human resources were assessed by records of number of servants per farm and by evidence of learning/knowledge transfer obtained via micromorphological analyses of home-field soils. Natural resources considered to be of particular importance were fish and eggs. Indicators of productive resources included tax value, land rent, livestock numbers and phosphorus content in home-fields. The latter revealed that the soil condition pre-settlement was linked to its post-settlement quality. An analysis of present day perceptions of historical farm abandonment in the area corresponds with the conclusions reached through the data integration in placing the human factor above the environmental one in influencing success and failure. The thesis concludes by highlighting the individuality of the study farms and the historical resilience of the livestock-based farming system. Additionally, areas of potential for future research are identified.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Tillage and phosphorus availability

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