Statistical analysis driven optimized deep learning system for intrusion detection

Attackers have developed ever more sophisticated and intelligent ways to hack information and communication technology systems. The extent of damage an individual hacker can carry out upon infiltrating a system is well understood. A potentially catastrophic scenario can be envisaged where a nation-state intercepting encrypted financial data gets hacked. Thus, intelligent cybersecurity systems have become inevitably important for improved protection against malicious threats. However, as malware attacks continue to dramatically increase in volume and complexity, it has become ever more challenging for traditional analytic tools to detect and mitigate threat. Furthermore, a huge amount of data produced by large networks has made the recognition task even more complicated and challenging. In this work, we propose an innovative statistical analysis driven optimized deep learning system for intrusion detection. The proposed intrusion detection system (IDS) extracts optimized and more correlated features using big data visualization and statistical analysis methods (human-in-the-loop), followed by a deep autoencoder for potential threat detection. Specifically, a pre-processing module eliminates the outliers and converts categorical variables into one-hot-encoded vectors. The feature extraction module discard features with null values and selects the most significant features as input to the deep autoencoder model (trained in a greedy-wise manner). The NSL-KDD dataset from the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity is used as a benchmark to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed architecture. Simulation results demonstrate the potential of our proposed system and its outperformance as compared to existing state-of-the-art methods and recently published novel approaches. Ongoing work includes further optimization and real-time evaluation of our proposed IDS.Comment: To appear in the 9th International Conference on Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2018

Differences between customer type and consumption stage in terms of service failure responses and preferred service recovery strategies in the cellphone industry

Cellphone network service providers face intense competition in a market reaching maturity. The industry is plagued with difficulties with infrastructure, congestion and subsequent service problems. This paper uncovers individual service failures customers experience in this industry, what their likely responses to a serious service failure are, and the service recovery strategies they prefer. It is the contention of the authors that different types of customers and customers in various consumption stages respond differently when faced with service failures and would therefore prefer different service recovery strategies. A total of 2339 useable responses were collected in Gauteng, South Africa through convenience sampling of cellphone owners aged 64 years or younger. The results indicate that respondents consider network unavailability to be the most common service failure. Significant differences were found between groupsof respondents, based on the type of customer and consumption stage, with regard to their likely responses to a serious service failure and the service recovery strategies they prefer. The results of the study may guide service providers in tailoring service recovery strategies for different types of customers and consumption stages.Key words: service failure, service recovery, cellphone network service providers, customer type, consumption stag

Quality of life of patients living with psoriasis: a qualitative study

Background: Psoriasis is a multifactorial inflammatory disease prevalent in dermatology. We aimed to understand the perceptions of patients living with psoriasis in relation to their quality of life and to identify aspects to improve it. Methods: This is qualitative research carried out in a dermatology outpatient clinic of the São Paulo State University (UNESP) medical school, Botucatu, Brazil, with 81 psoriasis patients. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using the Discourse of the Collective Subject method (DCS). Results: Quality of life was linked to well-being, happiness, leisure, good food and financial stability. However, disease symptoms, social and clothing restrictions, impairment of professional activities and the absence of a cure, negatively influenced their perceptions. Suggestions for improvements included an increase of public awareness, stress reduction, disease acceptance and multidisciplinary care. Conclusion: The meanings of quality of life revealed by the participants are subjective, multidimensional, linked to moments experienced by them and to the health-disease process. Public health policies promoting reduction in social stigma and stress as well as multidisciplinary approaches towards care can contribute to improvements of QoL in psoriasi

A Tree-Loop Duality Relation at Two Loops and Beyond

The duality relation between one-loop integrals and phase-space integrals, developed in a previous work, is extended to higher-order loops. The duality relation is realized by a modification of the customary +i0 prescription of the Feynman propagators, which compensates for the absence of the multiple-cut contributions that appear in the Feynman tree theorem. We rederive the duality theorem at one-loop order in a form that is more suitable for its iterative extension to higher-loop orders. We explicitly show its application to two- and three-loop scalar master integrals, and we discuss the structure of the occurring cuts and the ensuing results in detail.Comment: 20 pages. Few typos corrected, some additional comments included, Appendix B and one reference added. Final version as published in JHE

Psychometric Properties of the Brazilian Version of the Quality of Dying and Death for Adult Family Members of ICU Patients

Death is a complex, subjective phenomenon that requires an understanding of experiences to be qualified to provide care during the end-of-life process. This study aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version (Brazil) of the Quality of Dying and Death (QODD) scale on family members of patients who died in adult intensive care units. A methodological study was conducted with 326 family members of patients that died in three ICUs of public hospitals in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. For this study, the QODD 3.2a (25 items and six domains) was administered during the period from December 2020 to March 2022. The analysis was performed using the classic theory of the tests and the goodness of fit of the model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. We have used Spearman's correlation coefficients between the scores of the overall scale and domains. Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were used for the evaluation of internal consistency and temporal stability, respectively. The Horn's parallel analysis indicated two factors that were not confirmed in the exploratory factor analysis. A single factor retained 18 of the initial 25 items and the analysis of the goodness of fit to the unidimensional model resulted in the following: CFI = 0.7545, TLI = 0.690, chi-squared = 767.33, df = 135, RMSEA = 0.121 with 90%CI, and p = 5.04409. The inter-item correlations indicated a predominance of weak correlations among the items of the instrument. The items with the largest number of moderate correlations were questions 13b, 9b, and 10b and a strong correlation was found between questions 15b and 16b. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.8 and the ICC was 0.9. The Quality of Dying and Death-Version 3.2a (intensive therapy) in Brazilian Portuguese has a unidimensional structure and acceptable reliability. However, it did not obtain a good fit to the proposed factorial model

Genetic variations in androgen metabolism genes and associations with prostate cancer in South African men

Background. In South Africa white men have the highest incidence of prostate cancer (PCa), coloured (mixed ancestry) men have an intermediate incidence, and low incidences are reported for black and Asian men. It has been suggested that ethnic differences in incidence and mortality of PCa are related to genetic variations in genes that regulate androgen metabolism. We investigated the role of genetic variants in the androgen metabolism genes and the probability of developing PCa in South African coloured and white men. Methods. Genotype and allele counts and frequencies of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in CYP3A5, CYP3A4 and CYP3A43 were assessed in coloured men (160 case individuals, 146 control individuals) and white men (121 case individuals, 141 control individuals). Results. A genetic association indicating an increased probability of developing PCa was observed with the G allele of the SNP rs2740574 in CYP3A4 in coloured men, the A allele of rs776746 (CYP3A5) and the G allele of rs2740574 (CYP3A4) in white men, and the G allele of rs2740574 and the C allele of rs501275 (CYP3A43) in the combined ethnic groups analysis. In addition, we identified allele combinations (termed haplotypes) with significantly higher frequencies in the PCa case individuals than in the control individuals. Conclusions. The findings support the role of variants in genes that regulate androgen metabolism and the probability of developing PCa. The study paves the way to identify other genetic associations in South African men, and to establish genetic profiles that could be used to determine disease progression and prognosis

Psychometric characteristics of DLQI-BRA and Skindex-16 to measure the impact of dermatological diseases on quality of life in Brazilian patients

OBJECTIVE: To compare the psychometric performance of the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI-BRA) and Skindex-16 to assess quality of life (QoL) in Brazilian patients with dermatological diseases. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study carried out in a dermatology outpatient clinic of the São Paulo State University, with 188 patients with dermatological diseases. QoL was evaluated using the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI-BRA) and Skindex-16. Cronbach’s alpha and Intraclass Correlation for Perfect Concordance (ICC) were used to analyse the reliability and temporal stability, respectively. RESULTS: A positive correlation was found between the total Skindex-16 score and DLQI-BRA (0.75). Both instruments showed a significant (p0,7), but Skindex-16 displayed the highest Cronbach alpha (0.94; CI = 0.93–0.95). CONCLUSION: Both instruments tested showed a good psychometric performance assessing QoL in patients with skin dermatoses. The instruments displayed reliability and temporal stability as well as responsiveness

Decision Making for Inconsistent Expert Judgments Using Negative Probabilities

In this paper we provide a simple random-variable example of inconsistent information, and analyze it using three different approaches: Bayesian, quantum-like, and negative probabilities. We then show that, at least for this particular example, both the Bayesian and the quantum-like approaches have less normative power than the negative probabilities one.Comment: 14 pages, revised version to appear in the Proceedings of the QI2013 (Quantum Interactions) conferenc