The Outlook for Italian Foreign Policy

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Digital Forensics Tool Interface Visualization

Recent trends show digital devices utilized with increasing frequency in most crimes committed. Investigating crime involving these devices is labor-intensive for the practitioner applying digital forensics tools that present possible evidence with results displayed in tabular lists for manual review. This research investigates how enhanced digital forensics tool interface visualization techniques can be shown to improve the investigator\u27s cognitive capacities to discover criminal evidence more efficiently. This paper presents visualization graphs and contrasts their properties with the outputs of The Sleuth Kit (TSK) digital forensic program. Exhibited is the textual-based interface proving the effectiveness of enhanced data presentation. Further demonstrated is the potential of the computer interface to present to the digital forensic practitioner an abstract, graphic view of an entire dataset of computer files. Enhanced interface design of digital forensic tools means more rapidly linking suspicious evidence to a perpetrator. Introduced in this study is a mixed methodology of ethnography and cognitive load measures. Ethnographically defined tasks developed from the interviews of digital forensics subject matter experts (SME) shape the context for cognitive measures. Cognitive load testing of digital forensics first-responders utilizing both a textual-based and visualized-based application established a quantitative mean of the mental workload during operation of the applications under test. A t-test correlating the dependent samples\u27 mean tested for the null hypothesis of less than a significant value between the applications\u27 comparative workloads of the operators. Results of the study indicate a significant value, affirming the hypothesis that a visualized application would reduce the cognitive workload of the first-responder analyst. With the supported hypothesis, this work contributes to the body of knowledge by validating a method of measurement and by providing empirical evidence that the use of the visualized digital forensics interface will provide a more efficient performance by the analyst, saving labor costs and compressing time required for the discovery phase of a digital investigation

Measurements of mixed-mode crack surface displacements and comparison with theory

A theoretical and an experimental technique is used to determine crack surface displacements under mixed-mode conditions. Crack surface displacements proved to be quite useful in mode 1 fracture analysis in that they are directly related to strain energy release rate and stress intensity factor. It is felt that similar relationships can be developed for the mixed-mode case. A boundary-integral method was developed for application to two-dimensional fracture mechanics problems. This technique was applied to the mixed-mode problem. A laser interferometry technique, for measurement of crack surface displacements under mixed-mode conditions, is presented. The experimental measurements are reported and the results of the two approaches are compared and discussed

First evidence of achiasmatic male meiosis in the water bears Richtersius coronifer and Macrobiotus richtersi (Eutardigrada, Macrobiotidae)

Chromosome behaviour during male meioses has been studied in two bisexual amphimictic populations of two tardigrade species, namely Richtersius coronifer and Macrobiotus richtersi (Eutardigrada, Macrobiotidae). Both bisexual populations exhibit a diploid chromosome number 2n = 12 and no sex chromosomes were identified. DAPI staining and C-banding data indicate that all chromosomes of the bisexual population of R. coronifer are acrocentric. In both species, at male meiotic prophase, all six bivalent homologous chromosomes are aligned side by side along their length and show no evidence of chiasmata. However, in the oocytes of both species a chiasma is generally present in each bivalent at diplotene stage. Lack of recombination is previously unknown in tardigrades, but is a well known phenomenon in many other metazoans where it is always restricted to the heterogametic sex. In tardigrades there is no evidence of heterochromosomes, but it does not mean that in tardigrades, the heterogametic sex does not exist. The adaptive and evolutionary significance of achiasmatic meiosis is discussed

Le Parlement Européen à la Croisée des Chemins

Courtesy Barbara Spinelli (European Parliament) and Virginio Dastoli (European Movement and European Federalists), it is our pleasure to republish the presentation of the first issue of “Crocodile – Lettre aux Membres du Parlement européen”, founded and directed by Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986). The journal was launched on October 1, 1980, just one year after the first election of the European Parliament by universal suffrage (June 1979). In 1984 this Parliament endorsed the draft of a Treatise for the European Union, a substantial step toward the institution of a political union. The parallel proposal of union of all European States in a supranational State, promoted by the European Federalists, was rejected by the Heads of State members of the European Council. A subtle discussion of the conditions for existence and efficacy of a “European will” is the very core of this precious historical document

Heat-shock protein in encysted and anhydrobiotic eutardigrades

The Heat shock proteins (Hsps) can help organisms to survive environmental stresses. Tardigrades are aquatic metazoans able to colonize unpredictable, or “hostile to life”, terrestrial habitats entering resting stages such as cysts and anhydrobiotic tuns. In this paper we compared the Hsp70 and Hsp90 expression between resting stages (tuns or cysts) and active hydrated specimens of two eutardigrade species, namely Bertolanius volubilis and Ramazzottius oberhaeuseri. The two species partly differ in the kind of dormant stages utilized and in habitats colonized. In both species desiccation stress did not induce an up-regulation of either Hsps. Our data, together with those from literature, suggest that in tardigrades Hsps are involved in repairing molecular damages after anhydrobiosis, rather than in the stabilization of molecules during the dry state. Finally, the first demonstration of the presence of Hsps in diapausing cysts of B. volubilis are reported and discussed