Prevention of Malicious Transactions in Database Management Systems

Database Management Systems are a key component in the information infrastructure of most organizations nowadays so security of DBMS has become more crucial. Several mechanisms needed to protect data, such as authentication, user privileges, encryption, and auditing, have been implemented in commercial DBMS. But still there are some ways through which systems may be affected by malicious transactions. Our definition of malicious transaction is that transaction which the user is not authorized to perform. Even the sequence of the operations in the transaction is not to be violated. Existing intrusion detection systems use logs to detect malicious transactions. Logs are the histories of the transactions committed in the database. The disadvantage of using logs is that they require lot of memory. In addition to this sometimes even after a transaction is detected as malicious it cannot be rolled back. In this thesis we present a method by which we can overcome the uses of logs and can detect malicious transactions before they are committed. We use counting bloom filters to store the sequence of commands in a transaction and use a prevention model for instant detection of malicious transactions. Simulation was carried out for a single user providing sequence of queries varying the size of the CBF from 1 to 15 and no. of hashing functions from 1 to 15.It was concluded that by choosing optimal value of size of CBF and number of hashing functions the detector can be made to prevent a malicious transaction with a probability of almost 99.85%

Testing Linearly Coasting Cosmology by Strong Lensing System and Pantheon+ Data

The standard model of cosmology ($\Lambda$CDM) is facing a serious crisis caused by the inconsistencies in the measurements of some fundamental cosmological parameters (Hubble constant $H_{0}$ and cosmic curvature parameter $\Omega_{k}$ for example). On the other hand, a strictly linear evolution of the cosmological scale factor is found to be an excellent fit to a host of observations. Any model that can support such a coasting presents itself as a falsifiable model as far as the cosmological tests are concerned. In this article the observational data of strong gravitational lensing (SGL) systems from SLACS, BELLS, LSD and SL2S surveys has been used to test the viability of linearly coasting cosmology. Assuming the spherically symmetric mass distribution in lensing galaxies, the ratio of angular diameter distance from lens to source and angular diameter distance of the source is evaluated and is used to constrain the power law cosmology. Further, updated type Ia supernovae dataset (Pantheon+) with covariance matrix incorporating all statistical and systematic uncertainties is used to constrain the power law cosmology. It is found that the linear coasting is consistent with the SGL data within 1-$\sigma$ uncertainties but Pantheon+ sample does not support linear coasting.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

CBRN Security, Human Factor, and the New Focus on Security Culture

Security analysts worldwide are increasingly concerned that terrorist groups, in pursuit of more stupefying shows of strength and resolve, might seek access to CBRN materials. Of these, nuclear (N) materials, as a rule, are far better protected than the others. Yet, much of the concern about materials security revolves around nuclear rather than radiological (R), chemical (C) or biological (B). In part, this benign neglect of dangers from B, R, and N materials stems from the fact that we are surrounded by them in their civilian/industrial forms, and are comfortable and familiar with them in everyday life

Case report on interstitial pregnancy in a post adenomyomectomy woman

Intramural pregnancy is a rare form of ectopic pregnancy with early diagnosis essential for prevention of severe hemorrhage and uterine rupture. We report a rare case of an interstitial ectopic pregnancy at 09 weeks gestation in a woman 3 year post laparoscopic adenomyomectomy. 3D transvaginal ultrasound was utilized as diagnostic aids in this case. Due to the size and location of the gestational sac, and early diagnosis made this case undergo conservative surgical management saving her uterus for future pregnancy

Applying Blockchain for Dual Use Technologies Supply Chain Security

Blockchain technology is gaining momentum with potential applications in businesses, government, and social context with some impressive applications for storing information, eliminating intermediaries, and enabling greater coordination between entities in issues such as in maintaining data standards (Higginson, Nadeau, and Rajgopal, 2019). While there are aspects of this technology that are still not settled such as the question of whether it is a disruptor or foundational technology, there is an agreement that it has the capability to increase security and transparency of transactions to all parties. Smart contracts using blockchain are theorized to be manifested using machine-to-machine coordination within IoT or with decentralized digital marketplaces (Beck, Müller-Bloch, and King, 2018). However, even though the blockchain technology has the potential towards decentralization of authority decision-making, current research indicates that so far that has not transpired and blockchain applications mostly operate in the environment of centralization mimicking notion of “benevolent dictatorship” (Beck, Müller-Bloch, and King, 2018). The main purpose of this work is to understand the gaps in application of blockchain technology in supply chain with domain focus on the supply chains involving dual use products

Impact Of Social Media On Consumer Decision Process Regarding Purchasing Of Organic Cosmetics In West Delhi

The main purpose of the current study to examine the impact of social media on consumer decision process regarding purchasing of organic cosmetics. The study is exploratory cum descriptive in nature. A sample size of 200 married and 200 unmarried women are drawn using stratified random sampling. A structured questionnaire based on 5-point Likert scale is used to collect primary data from West Delhi. The findings of the research article represents that there is significant impact of social media on consumer decision process regarding purchasing of organic cosmetics

Determination of surface water area using multitemporal SAR imagery

Inland water and freshwater constitute a valuable natural resource in economic, cultural, scientific and educational terms. Their conservation and management are critical to the interests of all humans, nations and governments. In many regions these precious heritages are in crisis. The main focus of this research is to investigate the capability of time variable ENVISAT ASAR imagery to extract water surface and assess the water surface area variations of lake Poyang in the basin of Yangtze river, the largest freshwater lake in China. Nevertheless, the lake has been in a critical situation in recent years due to a decrease of surface water caused by climate change and human activities. In order to classify water and land areas and to achieve the temporal changes of water surface area from ASAR images during the period 2006-2011, the image segmentation technique was implemented. For this purpose, a thorough analysis of the SAR system and its properties is first discussed. Indeed, some impairments can affect the SAR imaging signals. These impairments such as different types of scattering, surface roughness, dielectric property of water, speckle and geometric distortions can reduce SAR image quality. To avoid these distortions or to reduce their impact, it is therefore important to pre-process SAR images effectively and accurately. All the images were pre-processed using NEST software provided by ESA. To calculate the water surface area, each image was tiled into 9 parts and then it is segmented using two different methods. Firstly histogram for each tile is observed. Using a local adaptive thresholding technique, two local maxima were determined on the histogram and then in between these local maxima, a local minimum is determined which can be considered as the threshold. In the second technique a Gaussian curve was fitted using Levenberg-Marquardt method (1944 and 1963) to obtain a threshold. These thresholds are used to segment the image into homogeneous land and water regions. Later, the time series for both methods is derived from the estimated water surface areas. The results indicate an intense decreasing trend in Poyang Lake surface area during the period 2006-2011. Especially between 2010 and 2011, the lake significantly lost its surface area as compared to the year 2006. Finally, the results are presented for both locally adaptive thresholding and Levenberg-Marquardt methods. These results illustrate the effectiveness of the locally adaptive thresholding method to detect water surface change. A continuous monitoring of water surface change would lead to a long term time series, which is definitely beneficial for water management purposes

A low voltage actuated RF-MEMS shunt capacitive switch

48-52Micro electromechanical system switches (MEMS) have procured remarkable attention in recent years due to their perceptible accomplishment in RF and microwave areas. The major challenge in RF-MEMS is to minimize the actuation voltage deprived of restoring force losses. The proposed design presents the analysis of a low actuation voltage shunt capacitive RF-MEMS switch. The proposed switch comprises low actuation voltage, low insertion loss and very high isolation. A horizontal structure of bridge membrane is exhibited in this design and its vertical movement is presided by the electrostatics MEMS actuation technique, which actually provides the ON and OFF conditions of the switch. The actuation pad is fed by coplanar wave guide (CPW) transmission line. The switch performance is successfully evaluated for a large frequency range from 1 GHz to 40GHz. The actuation voltage of the proposed design has been observed to be 3.0 Volts for a vertical displacement of 1.5 μm. Moreover, the fixed-fixed flexures beam structure offers the isolation of -43 dB and insertion loss of -0.12 dB at 28 GHz

Acetylcholinesterase Biosensors for Electrochemical Detection of Organophosphorus Compounds: A Review

The exponentially growing population, with limited resources, has exerted an intense pressure on the agriculture sector. In order to achieve high productivity the use of pesticide has increased up to many folds. These pesticides contain organophosphorus (OP) toxic compounds which interfere with the proper functioning of enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and finally affect the central nervous system (CNS). So, there is a need for routine, continuous, on spot detection of OP compounds which are the main limitations associated with conventional analytical methods. AChE based enzymatic biosensors have been reported by researchers as the most promising tool for analysis of pesticide level to control toxicity and for environment conservation. The present review summarises AChE based biosensors by discussing their characteristic features in terms of fabrication, detection limit, linearity range, time of incubation, and storage stability. Use of nanoparticles in recently reported fabrication strategies has improved the efficiency of biosensors to a great extent making them more reliable and robust

Functional divergence of Heat Shock Factors (Hsfs) during heat stress and recovery at the tissue and developmental scales in C4 grain amaranth (Amaranthus hypochondriacus)

Two major future challenges are an increase in global earth temperature and a growing world population, which threaten agricultural productivity and nutritional food security. Underutilized crops have the potential to become future climate crops due to their high climate-resilience and nutritional quality. In this context, C4 pseudocereals such as grain amaranths are very important as C4 crops are more heat tolerant than C3 crops. However, the thermal sensitivity of grain amaranths remains unexplored. Here, Amaranthus hypochondriacus was exposed to heat stress at the vegetative and reproductive stages to capture heat stress and recovery responses. Heat Shock Factors (Hsfs) form the central module to impart heat tolerance, thus we sought to identify and characterize Hsf genes. Chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence (Fv/Fm) reduced significantly during heat stress, while malondialdehyde (MDA) content increased, suggesting that heat exposure caused stress in the plants. The genome-wide analysis led to the identification of thirteen AhHsfs, which were classified into A, B and C classes. Gene expression profiling at the tissue and developmental scales resolution under heat stress revealed the transient upregulation of most of the Hsfs in the leaf and inflorescence tissues, which reverted back to control levels at the recovery time point. However, a few Hsfs somewhat sustained their upregulation during recovery phase. The study reported the identification, physical location, gene/motif structure, promoter analysis and phylogenetic relationships of Hsfs in Amaranthus hypochondriacus. Also, the genes identified may be crucial for future gene functional studies and develop thermotolerant cultivars