Reaching an Underserved Population in Communities: Project Xander – Cybersecurity for NonProfits

Cyber criminals continue to look for new targets which they can exploit. A recent addition to their list of targets are nonprofit and faith-based organizations within communities. These organization generally do not have the budget to hire a cybersecurity professional or pay for cybersecurity services. A program to reach this sector to assist them with their cybersecurity posture was launched called Project Xander. This program is designed to utilize students from area colleges and universities to provide assessment and consulting services for organizations within the sector. The pilot program was run in the 2021-2022 academic year and was successful and is now being expanded to include other communities and academic institutions. It addresses a need in communities in a sector that has been underserved and that has historically not had the resources to implement robust cybersecurity programs

Is a Significant Demographic Left Out of the Equation? An Overview of Possible Inequitable Access to Cybersecurity Educational Programs in the United States

Cybersecurity skills shortage has reached widespread proportions. The common consensus in the community is there is a lack of an established pathway early on in K-12 education that would help students gain an interest in Cybersecurity and related careers. Recent studies and national surveys indicate that most students are not well-informed about the educational and career requirements in the field. Though some cybersecurity education is offered in K-12 across the United States through various means such as camps, clubs, competitions and as standalone coursework, there is an uneven access for students to engage in these activities. Middle and high school student populations include teachers and educators who are part of smaller and lower income school districts which are often less exposed to initiatives related to Cybersecurity. We present a preliminary analysis of the possible inequitable access to Cybersecurity education and propose a survey-based methodology to further this project

Ab-initio electron scattering cross-sections and transport in liquid xenon

Ab-initio electron - liquid phase xenon fully differential cross-sections for electrons scattering in liquid xenon are developed from a solution of the Dirac-Fock scattering equations, using a recently developed framework [1] which considers multipole polarizabilities, a non-local treatment of exchange, and screening and coherent scattering effects. A multi-term solution of Boltzmann's equation accounting for the full anisotropic nature of the differential cross-section is used to calculate transport properties of excess electrons in liquid xenon. The results were found to agree to within 25% of the measured mobilities and characteristic energies over the reduced field range of 10^{-4} to 1 Td. The accuracies are comparable to those achieved in the gas phase. A simple model, informed by highly accurate gas-phase cross-sections, is presented to transform highly accurate gas-phase cross-sections to improve the liquid cross-sections, which was found to enhance the accuracy of the transport coefficient calculations.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1503.0037

The Need for Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations to Combat Attacks on States and Community Public and Private Networks

An ever increasing number of attacks are being reported on various city and state computer systems and networks worldwide. These attacks have resulted in the disruption of city operations or the release of personal information. Cities and states need to protect their systems but frequently plans to do so are lacking and the ability to respond to cybersecurity events is non-existent. This is especially true for smaller communities that do not have the budget to hire full-time security personnel or contract for security services. A critical step that states and communities can take is the establishment of a state or community Information Sharing and Analysis Organization (ISAO). This paper will describe how a state or community can use the creation of an ISAO to jumpstart various aspects of its cybersecurity program, incorporating a number of established programs in a single initiative

Intellectual Capital Disclosure Quality Changes in the Biotechnology Industry, 2003-10

The purpose of this research project was to examine the voluntary disclosure quality for intellectual capital by Australian biotechnology companies between 2003 and 2010. Measurement was made in the annual reports of the same 28 biotechnology firms in 2003, 2006 and 2010. Content analysis of narrative and measurement items, based on Sveiby’s ‘Intangible Assets Monitor’ categories (Internal, External and Human Capital) were used to accurately record the quality of voluntary ICD. Although expected, there was no demonstrable increase in the quality of voluntary ICD measured by Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. In fact, the only significant change in quality of ICD reporting in the firm’s annual reports was a significant decrease in ‘Internal Capital’ of the type most commonly recorded for intellectual property, financial relations and corporate culture. Key success factors for ‘Human Capital’ ICD, for example staff qualifications and know-how, or ‘External capital’ ICD, like those about collaborations, licensing agreements and grant funding, were certainly not absent from disclosures, but an expected increase in quality was not detected. A limitation of this study is its Australian context. Financial managers’ distraction by 2006 IFRS harmonization (intangible asset balance sheet de-recognition) and insulation of the Australian equities market to recent global events may partly explain our observation