Evidence identification in heterogeneous data using clustering

Digital forensics faces several challenges in examining and analyzing data due to an increasing range of technologies at people\u27s disposal. The investigators find themselves having to process and analyze many systems manually (e.g. PC, laptop, Smartphone) in a single case. Unfortunately, current tools such as FTK and Encase have a limited ability to achieve the automation in finding evidence. As a result, a heavy burden is placed on the investigator to both find and analyze evidential artifacts in a heterogenous environment. This paper proposed a clustering approach based on Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) and K-means algorithms to identify the evidential files and isolate the non-related files based on their metadata. A series of experiments using heterogenous real-life forensic cases are conducted to evaluate the approach. Within each case, various types of metadata categories were created based on file systems and applications. The results showed that the clustering based on file systems gave the best results of grouping the evidential artifacts within only five clusters. The proportion across the five clusters was 100% using small configurations of both FCM and K-means with less than 16% of the non-evidential artifacts across all cases -- representing a reduction in having to analyze 84% of the benign files. In terms of the applications, the proportion of evidence was more than 97%, but the proportion of benign files was also relatively high based upon small configurations. However, with a large configuration, the proportion of benign files became very low less than 10%. Successfully prioritizing large proportions of evidence and reducing the volume of benign files to be analyzed, reduces the time taken and cognitive load upon the investigator

Mobile phones as fomites for pathogenic microbes: A cross-sectional survey of perceptions and sanitization habits of health care workers in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Backgrounds In 2022, smartphone use continues to expand with the number of smartphone subscriptions surpassing 6 billion and forecasted to grow to 7.5 billion by 2026. The necessity of these ‘high touch’ devices as essential tools in professional healthcare settings carries great risks of cross-contamination between mobile phones and hands. Current research emphasises mobile phones as fomites enhancing the risk of nosocomial disease dissemination as phone sanitisation is often overlooked. To assess and report via a large-scale E-survey the handling practices and the use of phones by healthcare workers. Methods A total of 377 healthcare workers (HCWs) participated in this study to fill in an E-survey online consisting of 14 questions (including categorical, ordinal, and numerical data). Analysis of categorical data used non-parametric techniques such as Pearson's chi-squared test. Results During an 8-h shift, 92.8% (n/N = 350/377) use their phone at work with 84.6% (n/N = 319/377) considering mobile phones as an essential tool for their job. Almost all HCWs who participated in this survey believe their mobile phones could potentially harbour microorganisms (97.1%; n/N = 366/377). Fifty-seven respondents (15.1%) indicated that they use their phones while wearing gloves and 10.3% (n/N = 39/377) have never cleaned their phones. The majority of respondents (89.3%; n/N = 337/377) agreed that contaminated mobile phones could contribute to dissemination of SARS-CoV-2. Conclusion Mobile phone use is now almost universal and indispensable in healthcare. Medical staff believe mobile phones can act as fomites with a potential risk for dissemination of microbes including SARS-COV-2. There is an urgent call for the incorporation of mobile phone sanitisation in infection prevention protocol. Studies on the use of ultraviolet-C based phone sanitation devices in health care settings are needed

From the development of an open-source energy modelling tool to its application and the creation of communities of practice: The example of OSeMOSYS.

In the last decades, energy modelling has supported energy planning by offering insights into the dynamics between energy access, resource use, and sustainable development. Especially in recent years, there has been an attempt to strengthen the science-policy interface and increase the involvement of society in energy planning processes. This has, both in the EU and worldwide, led to the development of open-source and transparent energy modelling practices. This paper describes the role of an open-source energy modelling tool in the energy planning process and highlights its importance for society. Specifically, it describes the existence and characteristics of the relationship between developing an open-source, freely available tool and its application, dissemination and use for policy making. Using the example of the Open Source energy Modelling System (OSeMOSYS), this work focuses on practices that were established within the community and that made the framework's development and application both relevant and scientifically grounded

The Climate, Land, Energy, and Water systems (CLEWs) framework: a retrospective of activities and advances to 2019

Population growth, urbanization and economic development drive the use of resources. Securing access to essential services such as energy, water, and food, while achieving sustainable development, require that policy and planning processes follow an integrated approach. The 'Climate-, Land-, Energy- and Water-systems' (CLEWs) framework assists the exploration of interactions between (and within) CLEW systems via quantitative means. The approach was first introduced by the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an integrated systems analysis of a biofuel chain. The framework assists the exploration of interactions between (and within) CLEW systems via quantitative means. Its multi-institutional application to the case of Mauritius in 2012 initiated the deployment of the framework. A vast number of completed and ongoing applications of CLEWs span different spatial and temporal scales, discussing two or more resource interactions under different political contexts. Also, the studies vary in purpose. This shapes the methods that support CLEWs-type analyses. In this paper, we detail the main steps of the CLEWs framework in perspective to its application over the years. We summarise and compare key applications, both published in the scientific literature, as working papers and reports by international organizations. We discuss differences in terms of geographic scope, purpose, interactions represented, analytical approach and stakeholder involvement. In addition, we review other assessments, which contributed to the advancement of the CLEWs framework. The paper delivers recommendations for the future development of the framework, as well as keys to success in this type of evaluations

Can infants develop meningitis in the absence of bacteremia in the first ninety days of life? A retrospective chart review

The overall incidence of meningitis in infants 0-90 days is low; however, it remains a serious cause of morbidity and mortality among affected patients. It is standard of care to perform lumbar punctures as part of the work-up of fever in the first four weeks of life and sick-looking babies up to the age of 90 days. This particular procedure is often refused by parents, and physicians are left to predict the possibility of meningitis based on blood culture results.The aim of this study is to determine whether it would be safe to rule out meningitis based on a negative blood culture in this age group

Effect of Multilayers CdS Nanocrystalline Thin Films on the Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Due to relatively low price and nontoxicity of photovoltaic (PV) systems, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) recently gained a lot of attention in terms of improving their performance and longevity. Because most of the major elements are impacted by their separate production and layering procedures, the substances in DSSCs are critical to achieving these goals. Methylene blue dye sensitizer-based solar cells were effectively constructed in this work, and DSSC performance was assessed. The morphologies of nanocrystalline CdS thin films were investigated by the FE-SEM machine, and then XRD patterns of 1 layer, 2 layers, and 3 layers of nanocrystalline CdS thin films were analyzed. The thicknesses of the prepared samples were about 391 nm, 457 nm, and 912 nm for 1, 2, and 3 layers of nanocrystalline CdS thin film, respectively. J-V characteristics of the multilayer CdS thin films have been studied under a 100 mW/cm2 sunlight source. The experimental results revealed that the highest power conversion efficiency of a 3 layer porous-nanowall CdS/MB device was about 0.47%

First confirmed detection of SARS-COV-2 in untreated municipal and aircraft wastewater in Dubai, UAE: The use of wastewater based epidemiology as an early warning tool to monitor the prevalence of COVID-19

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome – Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China and spread to more than 114 countries resulting in a pandemic, which was declared by the WHO in March 2020. Tracking the spread of the virus raised a main concern in every country. Many researches proved the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in stool samples of patients, where the genes of this virus gave a positive signal several days prior to the occurrence of symptoms. The fact of viral shedding in stools provides an advantage in utilizing wastewater systems as a tool to monitor the viral prevalence. We tested more than 2900 municipal wastewater samples coming from 49 distinctive area in Dubai, where 28.6% showed positive results. We also looked into the wastewater samples from 198 commercial aircrafts arriving at Dubai Airport, giving a positive result percentage of 13.6%. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 genes was confirmed using TaqPath™ Covid-19 RT-PCR kit, which targets ORF1ab, N gene and S gene. This project shows the significance of utilizing wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) in monitoring the prevalence of various infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2, which can assist the decision makers to determine the level of precautionary measures according to the areas of the outbreak. With this in mind, pricewise, WBE is considered cost-effective when comparing to clinical nasal swabs

Evaluation of rapidly mutating Y-STRs in Pakistani population

Y-chromosomal Short Tandem Repeats have been widely used in forensic investigations, identification of males for criminal justice purpose and population genetics. Commercially available Y-STRs kits allow the identification of male pedigrees and has a limited application in forensic genetics because of its limitation in differentiating closely related male individuals. Recent research with the Rapidly Mutating Y-STRs (RM Y-STRs) have revealed that these loci deliver significantly higher discrimination capacity and haplotype diversity in worldwide populations when compared with the conventional Y-STRs. Although a number of RM Y-STRs have found their way in most updated commercial kits, there are still some loci that are not yet used in such kits. The aim of this study is to develop RM Y-STR haplotypes frequency database for the Pakistani population, in order to appraise the resolution power of these loci. A total of 212 unrelated males from the Pakistani population were typed with 13 RM Y-STRs which comprise DYF399S1, DYF387S1, DYS570, DYS576, DYS518, DYS526a + b, DYS626, DYS627, DYF403S1a + b, DYF404S1, DYS449, DYS547 and DYS612. 211 unique haplotypes were identified, out of which 1 haplotype was shared between two individuals, accounting for 0.9952 discrimination capacity (DC). Haplotype diversity was found to be 0.999925. Gene diversity (GD) values of all the loci were higher than 0.5, where the highest GD values were observed at DYF399S1, DYF403S1a and DYF404S1; with values of 0.99419, 0.98252 and 0.93061 respectively. Results of our study revealed that these 13 RM Y-STRs produced significantly stronger discriminatory power in Pakistani populations

Effect of CeO2/spherical silica and halloysite nanotubes engineered for targeted drug delivery system to treat breast cancer cells

Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2 NPs) and flavonoid curcumin that has been widely studied for treating diseases involving high reactive oxygen species (ROS). In nanotherapeutics, the particle size, shape, metal oxide dispersity and surface properties of nanocarriers are vital for drug delivery and therapeutic efficiency. Here, cisplatin release behavior on cerium impregnated two different shaped nanocarriers, CeO2/monodispersed spherical silica (Sil) and CeO2/halloysite (Hal) nanotube was studied for potential anti-cancer therapies. For comparison, CeO2 impregnated mesoporous silica MCM-41, SBA-16, Hydroxyapatite and clay were prepared. Subsequently, the nanocomposites were coated with curcumin (25% wt/wt), and cisplatin (Cp) functionalization (5% wt/wt). 5wt%CeO2/Hal/Cp and 5wt%CeO2/Sil/Cp samples were pegylated using lyophilization technique. Physico-chemical analyses revealed the nanosized distribution of CeO2 and functionalization of cisplatin and curcumin. Cp release was studied using automated Franz cell and dialysis membrane techniques. The different structured nanocarriers delivering mechanism was studied by determining the drug kinetic release using four different kinetic models (first order, second order, Higuchi and Korsmeyer-Peppas). In vitro cytotoxicity assay of nano formulations along with free cisplatin and curcumin (Cur) were tested against the breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) for multiple timepoints by MTT assay. The results reveled the efficacy of 5wt%CeO2/Sil/Cp/Cur nanoparticles in delivering cisplatin. On the other hand, 5wt%CeO2/Hal/Cur nanoparticles enhanced the uptake of curcumin in comparison to free curcumin. Overall, pegylated CeO2/Silica nano formulation demonstrated an effective carrier to cisplatin for potential treatment of breast cancer