Quantifying Privacy: A Novel Entropy-Based Measure of Disclosure Risk

It is well recognised that data mining and statistical analysis pose a serious treat to privacy. This is true for financial, medical, criminal and marketing research. Numerous techniques have been proposed to protect privacy, including restriction and data modification. Recently proposed privacy models such as differential privacy and k-anonymity received a lot of attention and for the latter there are now several improvements of the original scheme, each removing some security shortcomings of the previous one. However, the challenge lies in evaluating and comparing privacy provided by various techniques. In this paper we propose a novel entropy based security measure that can be applied to any generalisation, restriction or data modification technique. We use our measure to empirically evaluate and compare a few popular methods, namely query restriction, sampling and noise addition.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure

Saudi international students’ perceptions of their transition to the UK and the impact of social media

In their transition to a new country, international students often feel lost, anxious or stressed. Saudi students in the UK in particular may face further challenges due to the cultural, social and religious differences that they experience. There is a lot of evidence that social media play a crucial role in this experience. By interviewing 12 Saudi students from different cities in the UK, the aim of this study is to investigate how they perceive their transition to the UK and how social media is involved. The analysis indicates that Saudi students’ perceptions of transition tend to fall in to one of two markedly different camps. Some students see transition as an opportunity to detach themselves from their home country and to engage with the new society. Those students turn to social media as a tool allowing them to build bridges with the new society. Other students feel less enthusiastic to make a full engagement with the UK society. Those students find social media as a good tool to maintain connections and links with family and friends in their home country

Biopreservation of Shrimps Using Composed Edible Coatings from Chitosan Nanoparticles and Cloves Extract

Shrimps are highly valuable and perishable foodstuff that could be rapidly spoiled. Chitosan (Cht) was extracted and transformed into nanoparticles (NPs) via ionic gelation and fortified with cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) buds extract (CLE) for usage as antimicrobial composites against food-borne bacterial pathogens (Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Staphylococcus aureus) and as edible coating (EC) for shrimp (Fenneropenaeus indicus) biopreservation throughout refrigerated storage. The synthesized CLE/Cht-NPs were electrostatically cross-linked and appeared with spherical shapes and homogenized distribution, with 159.4 nm mean size diameter and positive charge of 17.4 mV. The entire agents (Cht-NPs, CLE, and CLE/Cht-NPs) exhibited remarkable antibacterial activities toward all food-borne pathogens; CLE/Cht-NPs were significantly the most forceful. The scanning micrographs of treated S. typhimurium with CLE/Cht-NPs displayed NPs ability to attach and destroy bacterial cells. The ECs-treated shrimps exhibited sharp decrease in microbial groups load (aerobic microorganisms, E. coli, Enterobacteriaceae, and staphylococci) during refrigerated storage (4 ± 1°C) for 10 days. Additionally, the sensorial attributes (appearance, odor, color, and texture) of EC-treated samples preserved their elevated qualities for storage duration. The most effective EC blend contained 1.5% from Cht/NPs and 1.0% from CLE. The CLE/Cht-NPs could be impressively recommended as effectual natural composites for shrimps’ biopreservation during cold storage