Web Social Media Privacy Preferences and Perception

The proliferation of social media websites has led to concerns over privacy breaches, as these sites have access to users' sensitive and personal data. This study sought to investigate users' perceptions and concerns for social media websites, with the aim of developing a system that meets their requirements. To achieve this, a questionnaire was designed for privacy permissions on eight popular social media websites, and 425 completed answers were analyzed. The results revealed that users' concerns were diverse and differed across different social media platforms. Gender, age, education level, and IT proficiency were found to be weakly correlated with privacy concerns. Women expressed greater concerns than men, particularly for Twitter and Snapchat, while older users expressed greater levels of concern for Snapchat and Instagram. As education levels increased, users tended to express greater levels of concern, especially on WhatsApp and Snapchat. Furthermore, this study identified four hierarchical clusters of users based on their preferences and concerns regarding permission privacy for social media websites. The results revealed that the majority of participants (214 users) were highly concerned about privacy on social media, indicating that they were aware of the potential risks associated with sharing personal information online which represents the third cluster. The first and fourth clusters were the most unconcerned groups regarding permission privacy, consisting of a small number of users. The second cluster, comprising 124 participants, had an average score of 1.6, indicating that they were the second most concerned about privacy. Overall, the findings of this study could be useful for social media platforms in developing privacy policies and settings that align with users' concerns and preferences

A Privacy-Enhancing Framework for Mobile Devices

The use of mobile devices in daily life has increased exponentially, leading to them occupying many essential aspects of people’s lives, such as replacing credit cards to make payments, and for various forms of entertainment and social activities. Therefore, users have installed an enormous number of apps. These apps can collect and share a large amount of data, such as location data, images, videos, health data, and call logs, which are highly valuable and sensitive for users. Consequently, the use of apps raises a variety of privacy concerns regarding which app is allowed to access and share; to what degree of granularity, and how to manage and limit the disclosure of this data. Accordingly, it is imperative to develop and design a holistic solution for enhancing privacy on mobile apps to meet users’ privacy preferences. The research design in this study involved an attempt to address the problem in a coherent and logical way. Therefore, the research involved different phases, starting with identifying potential user requirements based on the literature, and then designing a participatory study to explore whether the initial requirements and design meet users’ preferences, which in turn led to the design of a final artefact. Design science requires the creation of a viable artefact for the current problem in the field. Thus, this study reviews the current use of privacy technologies and critically analyses the available solutions in order to investigate whether these solutions have the capability to meet personal privacy preferences and maximise users’ satisfaction. It is evident that most of the prior studies assume the homogeneity of privacy preferences across users, yet users’ privacy preferences differ from one user to another in the context of how to control and manage their data, prioritisation of information, personalised notifications, and levels of knowledge. Moreover, solutions with a user interface designed according to the users’ perceptions and based on HCI principles are not readily available. Therefore, it is paramount to meet and adopt user’s need and requirements to enhance privacy technology for mobile apps. A survey of 407 mobile users was undertaken to discover users’ privacy preferences. The outcome of the survey shows that it is possible to prioritise information into 10 unique profiles. Each profile effectively represents a cluster of likeminded users and captures their privacy-related information preferences. The outcomes of the analysis also revealed that users differ not only in the context of prioritisation of their information, but also regarding design, protection settings, responses, and level of knowledge. This, in turn, emphasises the need to develop and design a holistic solution for users, considering all these dimensions. As such, the thesis proposes a novel framework for enhancing privacy technology in a modular and robust manner that would support such a system in practice. This system provides a comprehensive solution that has been developed by considering different dimensions, and it includes a personalised response, prioritisation of privacy-related information, multilevel privacy controls, and also considers users’ varying levels of knowledge. As a result, this approach should enhance users’ privacy awareness and meet their needs to protect their privacy. Additionally, the proposed of the system consists of user interfaces designed according to the users’ perceptions and based on HCI principles to overcome the usability issues without compromising the users’ convenience. Ultimately, the evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposed approach shows that it is feasible and would enhance privacy technology as well as user convenience. This, in turn, would increase trust in the system and reduce privacy concerns

The impact of Total Quality Management on organizational performance

This study came to investigate the impact of Total Quality management (TQM) practices and strategies on organisational performance. TQM is defined as a strategy that essentially aimed to establish and deliver high quality products and services that cover all customers' demands and achieve a high level of customer satisfaction. This paper discusses the implementation of total quality management in Pakistan and explores the relationship between the effective implementation and organisational performance. TQM in Pakistan was implemented in three categories of implementation methods which are; quality control, quality assurance and continuous improvement. The findings indicate that TQM has two organisational performances, either is TQM practices effect the organisational performance, or it hinders organisations to achieve their goals in which this will negatively affect the organizational performance. Keywords: Total Quality management, organisational performance, high quality products and services, customer satisfaction

Impact of ethynylene linkers on the optical and electrochemical properties of benzothiadiazole based alternate conjugated polymers

The effect of ethynylene spacers on the bandgap of alternating polymers, comprising 4,7-linked benzothiadiazole units and 2,7-linked fluorene, 2,7-linked carbazole or 2,6-linked anthracene repeat units has been investigated. The three novel polymers PFDEBT, PCDEBT and PPADEBT were prepared via the Sonogashira coupling reaction. The optical, electrochemical and thermal properties of the resulting polymers were compared and analysed. All polymers displayed low solubility in common organic solvents and have moderate molecular weights. Optical studies revealed that all the new ethynylene based-polymers displayed large bandgaps in excess of 2.1 eV. Results highlighted that incorporation of acetylene units between the benzothiadiazole electron accepting units and the other electron donor units over polymer chains leads to wide bandgaps as a result of the electron accepting properties of the acetylene units. The HOMO levels of the resulting polymers are unaffected by the different donor moieties used. However, varying the electron donor units can perturb the electron accepting ability of the main chain of polymers in this series and their LUMO levels. Anthracene-based polymer (PPADEBT) displayed the lowest LUMO level, while the fluorene-based polymer (PFDEBT) displayed the highest LUMO level. All polymers showed good stability to thermal degradation. The amorphous nature of these polymers was confirmed with powder X-ray diffraction studies

Expression and production optimization of the cationic antimicrobial peptide : indolicidin by the recombinant E. coli C41 (DE3) clones

The cytoplasmic granules of bovine neutrophils naturally possess indolicidin - a promising cationic antimicrobial peptide as it displays inherent inhibitory activities against a broad type of microbial pathogens. In this study, a shake flask level production and expression optimizations of the indolicidin by the recombinant Escherichia coli C41 (DE3) clones (transformed with pET21a(+) plasmid carrying indolicidin gene) were carried out under standard conditions, as to determine the conditions required for maximal production. It was determined that a concentration of 1 mM of IPTG was effective, the 2×YT with salts and LB media at pH 7.5 with 3-6 h of incubation were required for maximal indolicidin expression

Structural and electrochemical studies of proton conducting biopolymer blend electrolytes based on MC:Dextran for EDLC device application with high energy density

This study shows preparation and characterization of solid biopolymer electrolyte based on glycerolized methylcellulose (MC): dextran-doped with ammonium thiocyanate (NH4SCN). The nature of electrolyte composition in terms of interaction is characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) technique. Lowering and shifting in the intensity of the bands are observed with increasing the quantity of glycerol as a plasticizer, confirming complexation between electrolyte components. Ion transport parameters are determined using both of the methods of EIS and FTIR where the parameters are found to be increased with glycerol concentration. The transport number measurement indicates that ions are the primary charge carrier in the conduction mechanism where tion is found to be 0.961. The maximum DC ionic conductivity value is achieved that found to be 1.63 � 10�3 S cm�1. The ESR values are ranged from 300 to 580 O throughout 450 cycles. The technique of linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) shows the electrochemical stability window of 2 V for the conducting samples. The response of cyclic voltammetry (CV) shows an almost rectangular shape without Faradaic peaks. A galvanostatic charge–discharge investigation has shown the initial specific capacitance, energy density, and power density are 133 F g�1, 18.3 Wh Kg�1, and 680 W Kg�1, respectively

Study of ordered hadron chains with the ATLAS detector

La lista completa de autores que integran el documento puede consultarse en el archivo

A search for resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a new particle X in the XH→qqbb final state with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy resonances decaying into a Higgs boson ($H$) and a new particle ($X$) is reported, utilizing 36.1 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV collected during 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The particle $X$ is assumed to decay to a pair of light quarks, and the fully hadronic final state $XH \rightarrow q\bar q'b\bar b$ is analysed. The search considers the regime of high $XH$ resonance masses, where the $X$ and $H$ bosons are both highly Lorentz-boosted and are each reconstructed using a single jet with large radius parameter. A two-dimensional phase space of $XH$ mass versus $X$ mass is scanned for evidence of a signal, over a range of $XH$ resonance mass values between 1 TeV and 4 TeV, and for $X$ particles with masses from 50 GeV to 1000 GeV. All search results are consistent with the expectations for the background due to Standard Model processes, and 95% CL upper limits are set, as a function of $XH$ and $X$ masses, on the production cross-section of the $XH\rightarrow q\bar q'b\bar b$ resonance