High Performance Data Mining Techniques For Intrusion Detection

The rapid growth of computers transformed the way in which information and data was stored. With this new paradigm of data access, comes the threat of this information being exposed to unauthorized and unintended users. Many systems have been developed which scrutinize the data for a deviation from the normal behavior of a user or system, or search for a known signature within the data. These systems are termed as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS). These systems employ different techniques varying from statistical methods to machine learning algorithms. Intrusion detection systems use audit data generated by operating systems, application softwares or network devices. These sources produce huge amount of datasets with tens of millions of records in them. To analyze this data, data mining is used which is a process to dig useful patterns from a large bulk of information. A major obstacle in the process is that the traditional data mining and learning algorithms are overwhelmed by the bulk volume and complexity of available data. This makes these algorithms impractical for time critical tasks like intrusion detection because of the large execution time. Our approach towards this issue makes use of high performance data mining techniques to expedite the process by exploiting the parallelism in the existing data mining algorithms and the underlying hardware. We will show that how high performance and parallel computing can be used to scale the data mining algorithms to handle large datasets, allowing the data mining component to search a much larger set of patterns and models than traditional computational platforms and algorithms would allow. We develop parallel data mining algorithms by parallelizing existing machine learning techniques using cluster computing. These algorithms include parallel backpropagation and parallel fuzzy ARTMAP neural networks. We evaluate the performances of the developed models in terms of speedup over traditional algorithms, prediction rate and false alarm rate. Our results showed that the traditional backpropagation and fuzzy ARTMAP algorithms can benefit from high performance computing techniques which make them well suited for time critical tasks like intrusion detection

Unwanted penile engorgement in pediatric patients under anesthesia: The role of anesthetic technique and other contributing factors

Background: The mechanism behind intraoperative penile engorgement (PE) is complex. One common myth is that PE occurs more frequently during spinal anesthesia than the general anesthesia. Objective: The objective of this study was to report the incidence and management of intraoperative PE in pediatric patients undergoing urogenital operations under spinal anesthesia with or without sedation over a period of 1 year. Methods: Patients aged between 2 and 12 years, posted for elective urogenital surgery of expected duration <1 h, were given spinal anesthesia with or without supplemental sedation as per child’s cooperation. Incidence of unwanted intraoperative PE, time of onset of the SA, length of surgery, attempts of successful lumbar puncture, need for supplemental systemic sedation, conversion to general anesthesia, and perioperative complications were recorded. Results: A total of 348 patients were included in the study. Only two (0.005%) cases developed PE intraoperatively. 225 (64.6%) children required systemic sedation along with spinal blockade. 123 (35.3%) cases were successfully operated under spinal alone without any sedation. None of the cases required conversion into general anesthesia. The mean time of onset of spinal blockade was 100±54 s. First attempt success rate of lumbar puncture was 83% while 16.9% of patients required the second attempt. There were no major complications in any child in the perioperative period. Conclusion: Spinal anesthesia is associated with very less incidence of PE and can be practiced safely in the pediatric patients. Just the fear of development of PE should not bias the choice of an esthetic technique toward general anesthesia

A Novel Chaotic Permutation-Substitution Image Encryption Scheme Based on Logistic Map and Random Substitution

Privacy is a serious concern related to sharing videos or images among people over the Internet. As a method to preserve images’ privacy, chaos-based image encryption algorithms have been used widely to fulfil such a requirement. However, these algorithms suffer from a low key-space, significant computational overhead, and a lag in resistance against differential attacks. This paper presents a novel chaos-based image encryption method based on permutation and substitution using a single Substitution Box (S-Box) to address issues in contemporary image encryption algorithms. The proposed encryption technique’s efficiency is validated through extensive experiments as compared to the state-of-the-art encryption algorithms using different measures and benchmarks. Precisely, the collected results demonstrate that the proposed technique is more resilient against well-known statistical attacks and performs well under plaintext attacks. Indeed, the proposed scheme exhibits very high sensitivity concerning the plaintext attack. A minor change in the encryption key or the plain text would result in a completely different encrypted image

Accounting for Islamic finance

This book is an effort to document the application of the Malaysian Financial Reporting Standards (MFRS) on Islamic finance transactions in Islamic banking, takaful entities and Islamic asset management in Malaysia. There are 15 chapters in this book which are divided into four parts. Part I, which covers Chapters 1 to 3, provides a background on Islamic finance development in Malaysia and sets the scene to the rest of the chapters in this book. Chapter 1 discusses the differences between Islamic and conventional financial institutions which comprise banking, takaful and asset management companies. Chapter 2 explains Malaysia’s journey on Islamic banking where, among others, it entails discussion on development of regulatory requirements on Islamic finance since 1983 and using accrual accounting for Islamic finance transactions. While Chapter 3 focuses on the adoption of accounting standards by the Islamic financial institutions and its implications on Islamic finance. Parts II to IV that cover 12 chapters, discuss the application of MFRSs on assets, liabilities, income, expenses and equity of Islamic banks, takaful entities and Islamic asset management companies. The discussion on assets, liabilities and equity look at definition/nature, recognition, measurement as well as presentation and disclosure of the items in the financial statements of these entities. Parts II and III that cover Islamic banking and takaful entities respectively, also include an introduction chapter on understanding of Islamic banks’ and takaful entities’ financial statements as well as a brief discussion on future consideration of accounting standards for those entities, given the continuous development of the accounting standards affecting them. It is our hope that this book would instil the knowledge of applying MFRSs on Islamic finance transactions among the students of universities and institute of higher learning as well as provide useful reference materials in teaching the application of MFRS on Islamic finance transactions. In addition, this book could be a point of reference that explains and clarifies the rationale behind current applications of MFRS for Islamic finance either for Islamic financial institutions or other industries

Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome

Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome

A Framework for Plagiarism Detection in Arabic Documents

We are developing a web-based plagiarism detection system to detect plagiarism in written Arabic documents. This paper describes the proposed framework of our plagiarism detection system. The proposed plagiarism detection framework comprises of two main components, one global and the other local. The global component is heuristics-based, in which a potentially plagiarized given document is used to construct a set of representative queries by using different best performing heuristics. These queries are then submitted to Google via Google's search API to retrieve candidate source documents from the Web. The local component carries out detailed similarity computations by combining different similarity computation techniques to check which parts of the given document are plagiarised and from which source documents retrieved from the Web. Since this is an ongoing research project, the quality of overall system is not evaluated yet

Perceived need for emergency medicine training in Pakistan: a survey of medical education leadership.

Objective: To assess the perception of leaders of the academic medical institutions regarding the need for specialty training in emergency medicine. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in all medical colleges of Pakistan in September 2005. Our sample included all academic leaders of recognized medical colleges in Pakistan. A questionnaire was designed and sent (mailed and faxed) to vice chancellors, deans, principals or medical directors of the institutions. Reminders were sent through faxes and emails wherever available, followed by phone calls if responses were not available after several attempts. Results: At the time of study, there were 39 medical colleges recognized by Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. Of these, responses were received from 26 teaching institutions in the country. A majority of the respondents (85%) were not satisfied with the care provided in the ED of their primary teaching hospital, and three-fourth (74%) thought that doctors specialized in other disciplines, like internal medicine and family medicine, cannot adequately manage all emergencies. When asked if Pakistan should have a separate residency training programme in emergency medicine, 96% responded in affirmative, and many (85%) thought that they will start a residency programme in emergency medicine if it was approved as a separate specialty. Conclusion: This survey shows significant support for a separate local training programme for emergency medicine in the country

Evaluation of Different Plagiarism Detection Methods: A Fuzzy MCDM Perspective

Due to the overall widespread accessibility of electronic materials available on the internet, the availability and usage of computers in education have resulted in a growth in the incidence of plagiarism among students. A growing number of individuals at colleges around the globe appear to be presenting plagiarised papers to their professors for credit, while no specific details are collected of how much was plagiarised previously or how much is plagiarised currently. Supervisors, who are overburdened with huge responsibility, desire a simple way—similar to a litmus test—to rapidly reform plagiarized papers so that they may focus their work on the remaining students. Plagiarism-checking software programs are useful for detecting plagiarism in examinations, projects, publications, and academic research. A number of the latest research findings dedicated to evaluating and comparing plagiarism-checking methods have demonstrated that these have restrictions in identifying the complicated structures of plagiarism, such as extensive paraphrasing as well as the utilization of technical manipulations, such as substituting original text with similar text from foreign alphanumeric characters. Selecting the best reliable and efficient plagiarism-detection method is a challenging task with so many options available nowadays. This paper evaluates the different academic plagiarism-detection methods using the fuzzy MCDM (multi-criteria decision-making) method and provides recommendations for the development of efficient plagiarism-detection systems. A hierarchy of evaluation is discussed, as well as an examination of the most promising plagiarism-detection methods that have the opportunity to resolve the constraints of current state-of-the-art tools. As a result, the study serves as a “blueprint” for constructing the next generation of plagiarism-checking tools