ACMiner: Extraction and Analysis of Authorization Checks inAndroid’s Middleware

Billions of users rely on the security of the Android platform to protect phones, tablets, and many different types of consumer electronics. While Android’s permission model is well studied, the enforcementof the protection policy has received relatively little attention. Much of this enforcement is spread across system services,taking the form of hard-coded checks within their implementations.In this paper, we propose Authorization Check Miner (ACMiner),a framework for evaluating the correctness of Android’s access control enforcement through consistency analysis of authorization checks. ACMiner combines program and text analysis techniques to generate a rich set of authorization checks, mines the corresponding protection policy for each service entry point, and uses association rule mining at a service granularity to identify inconsistencies that may correspond to vulnerabilities. We used ACMiner to study the AOSP version of Android 7.1.1 to identify 28 vulnerabilities relating to missing authorization checks. In doing so, we demonstrate ACMiner’s ability to help domain experts process thousands of authorization checks scattered across millions of lines of code

Uncovering trophic interactions in arthropod predators through DNA shotgun-sequencing of gut contents

Characterizing trophic networks is fundamental to many questions in ecology, but this typically requires painstaking efforts, especially to identify the diet of small generalist predators. Several attempts have been devoted to develop suitable molecular tools to determine predatory trophic interactions through gut content analysis, and the challenge has been to achieve simultaneously high taxonomic breadth and resolution. General and practical methods are still needed, preferably independent of PCR amplification of barcodes, to recover a broader range of interactions. Here we applied shotgun-sequencing of the DNA from arthropod predator gut contents, extracted from four common coccinellid and dermapteran predators co-occurring in an agroecosystem in Brazil. By matching unassembled reads against six DNA reference databases obtained from public databases and newly assembled mitogenomes, and filtering for high overlap length and identity, we identified prey and other foreign DNA in the predator guts. Good taxonomic breadth and resolution was achieved (93% of prey identified to species or genus), but with low recovery of matching reads. Two to nine trophic interactions were found for these predators, some of which were only inferred by the presence of parasitoids and components of the microbiome known to be associated with aphid prey. Intraguild predation was also found, including among closely related ladybird species. Uncertainty arises from the lack of comprehensive reference databases and reliance on low numbers of matching reads accentuating the risk of false positives. We discuss caveats and some future prospects that could improve the use of direct DNA shotgun-sequencing to characterize arthropod trophic networks

HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT IN PUBLIC TERTIARY EDUCATION OF KADUNA STATE

Human capital development denotes the most valuable and critical assets in the public tertiary education and it is globally recognized as a key driver for innovation and sustainable development. However, the study examines the effect of human capital development in public tertiary education of Kaduna state. The population of this study was made up of the all the public Tertiary Institutions in Kaduna State (Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Kaduna state University, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Zaria, Kaduna Polytechnic, National College of education Zaria and Kaduna state college of education Gidan Waya. Twenty-five questionnaires were administered to each public institution. 150 questionnaires administered and 112 were retrieved from the respondents which was used as the sample size. Therefore, the impact and significance of human capital development in Public Tertiary Education in Kaduna State will no doubt enhance learning as well as development in all area of human endeavor. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the Nigerian government should develop an adequate human capital with global skills and e-learning practices, with proper training partnership with other domestic industries, technical training institutions and research institutions internationally. Also, there is an urgent need for the federal and state government to raise their spending on education in order to fulfill the 26% UNESCO criterion by increasing staff costs and salaries, which will aid in advancing knowledge, increasing production, and fostering national progres

DPP-T50-6_S6_L001_R2_001_QC

Zipped Fastq file (R2) of the sequenced TruSeq-Illumina library of the gut contents of Harmonia axyridis 96 hours after feeding

DPP-T50-2_S2_L001_R2_001_QC

Zipped Fastq file (R2) of the sequenced TruSeq-Illumina library of the gut contents of Harmonia axyridis immediately after feeding

DPP-T50-4_S4_L001_R1_001_QC

Zipped Fastq file (R1) of the sequenced TruSeq-Illumina library of the gut contents of Harmonia axyridis 24 hours after feeding

Data from: Detection and decay rates of prey and prey symbionts in the gut of a predator through metagenomics

DNA methods are useful to identify ingested prey items from the gut of predators, but reliable detection is hampered by low amounts of degraded DNA. PCR-based methods can retrieve minute amounts of starting material but suffer from amplification biases and cross-reactions with the predator and related species genomes. Here, we use PCR-free direct shotgun sequencing of total DNA isolated from the gut of the harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis at five time points after feeding on a single pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum. Sequence reads were matched to three reference databases: Insecta mitogenomes of 587 species, including H. axyridis sequenced here; A. pisum nuclear genome scaffolds; and scaffolds and complete genomes of 13 potential bacterial symbionts. Immediately after feeding, multicopy mtDNA of A. pisum was detected in tens of reads, while hundreds of matches to nuclear scaffolds were detected. Aphid nuclear DNA and mtDNA decayed at similar rates (0.281 and 0.11 h−1 respectively), and the detectability periods were 32.7 and 23.1 h. Metagenomic sequencing also revealed thousands of reads of the obligate Buchnera aphidicola and facultative Regiella insecticola aphid symbionts, which showed exponential decay rates significantly faster than aphid DNA (0.694 and 0.80 h−1, respectively). However, the facultative aphid symbionts Hamiltonella defensa, Arsenophonus spp. and Serratia symbiotica showed an unexpected temporary increase in population size by 1–2 orders of magnitude in the predator guts before declining. Metagenomics is a powerful tool that can reveal complex relationships and the dynamics of interactions among predators, prey and their symbionts

DPP-T50-1_S1_L001_R2_001_QC

Zipped Fastq file (R2) of the sequenced TruSeq-Illumina library of the gut contents of Harmonia axyridis before feeding (negative control)

DPP-T50-2_S2_L001_R1_001_QC

Zipped Fastq file (R1) of the sequenced TruSeq-Illumina library of the gut contents of Harmonia axyridis immediately after feeding