A Forensic Analysis of Video Streaming Activities on Android Applications

Mobile applications of video streaming platforms store a lot of information on mobile devices which can have both positive and negative impacts. Positive, in the sense that it could assist law enforcement agencies in solving crime, and the negative impact is that it could be accessed by malicious actors. In this study, we forensically investigate the Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and iFlix android applications. The major focus is on identifying stored artifacts on the mobile devices left behind by the android video streaming applications. It will give law enforcement agencies and forensic investigators a clear direction when it comes to extracting evidence to solve a crime. On the other hand, it will notify the mobile application developers on how to further improve the security of their mobile applications.

A M-Service Implementation in Large Government Organisation: A Case Study on an M-app in Australia

With the rapid diffusion of smartphones among citizens, government service providers have shifted their service-delivery focus toward mobile applications. However, its applications and implementations remained uneven throughout various public sectors. The scarce research in the area prevented the generation of a sound knowledge base for m-service implementation. This paper reports the investigation of a mobile application service in a large government organisation in Australia. Findings show that an m-service implementation, which does not follow a stage-wise model, is a complex phenomenon, wherein multiple actions and players are involved at different levels. This study indicates that the cumulative knowledge and experience of various stakeholders within an organization contribute to getting an innovation off the ground, wherein the conducive environment supported by appropriate policies and strategies, the readiness of customers and organizations, and the capability of the internal Information and Communication Technology (ICT) team and the influence of management are important drivers

M-government Implementation: A Comparative Study between a Developed and a Developing Country

From the beginning of the 21st century, the development and proliferation of mobile technologies has seen the fastest uptake of a technological innovation in history, with more than 7 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide (ITU, 2015). It has multi-faceted advantages; such as low price, convenience, lower infrastructure requirements and near ubiquity; which make it suitable for all forms of business communication and services, as well as government services. However, m-government development worldwide has so far been uneven. While governments in the developed world are adopting m-services as an extension of their existing e-government and web based online services, some developing countries are experimenting with m-services by leapfrogging entire generations of technologies, such as those that are web based. As such, their adoption and implementation processes often follow quite different trajectories, and lessons from both developed and developing countries are not widely shared and understood. Consequently, many of these initiatives, particularly in developing countries, are failing to yield the expected positive outcomes or falling to ‘scale up’ (Kervenoael, Palmer, & Cakici, 2011; Ogunleye & Van Belle, 2014). Also, m-government being a relatively recent innovation with some unique characteristics, practical guidance emerging from sound theoretical underpinnings to guide the successful implementation of these services by governments are not documented in the literature. An extensive review of contemporary literature in the area presents some valuable insights about its trends, limitations, and opportunities, but provides little information about implementation processes. Also, the extant literature on IT-enabled innovation processes is predominantly based on empirical evidence gathered from developed countries, and as such does not address the contextual and other differences arising from the unique circumstances of developing nations. Against this backdrop, this thesis addresses two research questions: First, how an m-service is implemented in the public sector? Is there a difference between developed and developing countries? Second, what knowledge can be learned or exchanged between developed and developing countries in m-service implementation by governments? The conceptual framework for this study is drawn from Rogers’ (2003; p.138) innovation-development process framework and Van de Ven et al.’s, (1999; p.25) innovation process framework. Rogers’ (2003) framework is a simple step-wise model consisting of all decisions, activities and impacts arising from recognising a problem. This includes the production of ideas and concepts through research and development, production and marketing to diffuse the innovation, and studying adoption to see if the innovation has been taken up and has had an impact. Again, Van de Ven et al.’s framework (1999), a non-linear model developed by examining fourteen different technical and administrative innovations created in large to small organisations (Schroeder et al., 1986, 1989; Angle & Van de Ven, 1989), is found to be more reliable than a stage-based model (King, 1992). Five in-depth case studies of mobile-based innovation processes (m-government services) were examined from both a developed (Australia) and a developing country (Bangladesh) using a case study method (Yin, 2009). Primary data sources include the responses from 86 interviewees, field notes, and on-site observations, while secondary data consists of relevant organisational documents and gazettes. The findings show that the mobile based innovation process model based on Rogers’ (2003) and Van de van et al.’s (1999) work needs to be extended to accommodate two significant key elements: ‘anxiety’ and ‘IT governance’, the former of which is strongly evident in developing countries and the latter in developed countries. Across the innovation path of both the developed and the developing nations, the innovators were found to be ‘anxious’ due to unforeseen and uncontrolled activities and events. The issues within ‘IT governance,’ were evident in the developed country (Australia) cases throughout the innovation process due to a customer-centric focus that emphasises citizens’ interests, whereas this was not evident in the developing country’s (Bangladesh) case studies. Other observations on the need for a ‘business case’, ‘research’ and the ‘fluid’ nature of personnel flows focused attention on the innovators when implementing m-services. No formal ‘research’ was evident in four of the five examples studied. In Bangladesh, the employment nature of IT personnel was ‘stable’ during the innovation process, whereas the theory suggested the labour force would be more ‘fluid’ in nature, with people entering and leaving employment. The thesis offers an extended model of m-service innovation in the public sector, which is applicable to both developed and developing countries, based on empirical evidence derived from research in two different countries. Addressing the gap in existing knowledge, this research develops a comprehensive framework that identifies and analyses key issues within the innovation process. The theory is augmented by the inclusion of two significant issues, ‘anxiety’ and ‘IT governance’. The thesis provides some practical recommendations and guidelines for innovators and policy makers for m-service implementation, which may increase the likelihood of success

High Temperature X-Ray Diffraction Study of Barium Pyrophosphate

820-82

Performance Analysis of Relay-Assisted Device-to-Device Communication

Outage and Success performances of an amplify-and-forward relay-assisted D2D communication system over a κ-μ shadowed fading wireless link are presented here. Co-channel interference (CCI) is assumed to affect the D2D signals at relay and destination nodes. The system is analyzed with two scenarios, namely, with diversity combining and without diversity combining. Selection combining (SC) based diversity scheme is incorporated at the D2D receiver to combat fading conditions. The expressions for success and outage probabilities are presented by using the characteristic function approach. The expressions are functions of path-loss exponents, wireless link length between relay and D2D source node, wireless link length between the receiver node and relay, distances between interferers and the relay node, CCI distances from various devices of the system, fading channel. The numerical analysis for various scenarios is presented and analyzed

Effectiveness of a “Whole of Chain” Approach in Linking Farmers to Market: A Case of Pakistan Mango Market

AbstractMango is the second major fruit crop in Pakistan. The domestic retail market for mango in Pakistan is dominated by small retail shops, street hawkers, and road side stalls. The fruit sold in these retail outlets is prescribed by the traditional quality standards of size, appearance and price. However the growth of superior outlets/supermarkets chain especially in the major cities are setting additional quality standards such as blemish free, improved packaging, prestige, convenience to deliver premium quality mangoes. Similarly the export market is mainly targeted to the expatriate Pakistani consumers rather than quality conscious foreign consumers. This is because of inadequate market information and understanding all along the chain. A whole of chain approach is undertaken to improve the market understanding in an ACIAR project. Since the approach is new, a conceptual framework is developed in order to asses the effectiveness of the approach. The results indicate that the participants all along the chain would change their practices if they find the compelling reason to change in their existing businesses

The impact of financial flexibility on capital structure decisions: Some empirical evidence

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effect of financial flexibility on capital structure decisions on selected firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2006-2018. The results indicate that the cash value of the previous years had no meaningful relationship with the current year's financial leverage, which suggests that flexibility in previous years could not explain the financial leverage of the coming years and financial leverage of companies changes did not occur based on the past years performance. When the ultimate value of financial flexibility is high, the im-pact of different variables, for example, profits, depreciation, and depreciation costs, fixed assets, etc., on leverage is of little importance, with a slight change in leverage. Companies with a high final value of financial flexibility are willing to maintain their current debt capacities, but it is significantly possible that they target deliberate or temporary deviations from their leverage ratios

A review of the blood transfusion practices in neuroanesthesia in the perioperative period in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Blood transfusion involves the administration of blood and blood components. Neurosurgical procedures are associated with significant blood loss with the need for blood transfusion in the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative period to maintain optimal hemodynamic and cerebral oxygenation. Various neurosurgical procedures as traumatic brain injury, complex spinal surgeries, and endovascular neurosurgical procedures may need blood transfusions to maintain the optimal physiology.Methods: This study was performed prospectively at a tertiary care hospital in northern India with about a work load of 800 to 1000 elective neurosurgical surgical procedures being done per year. This data was collected prospectively over a period of one year from the patients being operated for elective neurosurgical procedures and later on shifted to the neurosurgical intensive care unit and the neurosurgical wards. The patients operated for emergency procedures for traumatic brain surgery were not included in the study.Results: A total of 455 elective neurosurgical procedures were done during the study period. Out of these 455 patients there were 95 patients who were in the paediatric age group with age less than 12 years. Out of 360 adult patients 85 patients were in need of blood transfusion which constituted 23.6 percent of the operated patients.   Out of these 85 patients 45 patients needed two transfusions in the form of whole blood or packed cells, 40 patients needed a single transfusion.42 units of fresh frozen plasma were transfused to 17 patients with 15 patients receiving platelet transfusions.Conclusions: In conclusion, neurosurgical population is associated with significant blood loss and a requirement of blood transfusion. About 47 percent of paediatric population needed blood transfusion in our study with around 24 percent of adult population. The transfusion requirement was mainly seen in patients with craniostenosis, meningiomas, cerebello pontine tumours and meningiomas

Forensic Analysis of Tor Browser on Windows 10 and Android 10 Operating Systems

Smartphones and Internet have become prevalent in our society with various applications in businesses, education, healthcare, gaming, and research. One of the major issues with the Internet today is its lack of security since an eavesdropper can potentially intercept the communication. This has contributed towards an increased number of cyber-crime incidents, resulting in an increase in users’ consciousness about the security and privacy of their communication . One example is the shift towards using private browsers such as Tor. Tor is a well-recognized and widely used privacy browser based on The Onion Router network that provisions anonymity over the insecure Internet. This functionality of Tor has been a major hurdle in cybercrime investigations due to the complex nature of its anonymity. This paper investigates artifacts from the Tor privacy browser on the latest Windows 10 and Android 10 devices to determine potential areas where evidence can be found. We examine the registry, storage, and memory of Windows 10 devices and the memory, storage, logs, and Zram of Android 10 devices for three possible scenarios i.e. before, during, and after use of the Tor browser. Our results do not support the claims made by the Tor Project regarding user privacy and anonymity. We find that it is possible to retrieve significant details about a user’s browsing activities while the Tor browser is in use as well as after it is closed (on both operating systems). This paper also provides an investigative methodology for the acquisition and analysis of Tor browser artifacts from different areas of the targeted operating systems. Therefore, it can serve as a base to expand research in the forensic analysis of other privacy browsers and improve the efficiency of cybercrime investigations efficiency

Soft Tissue Tumours with Epithelioid Morphoogy

 To study the morphologicalfindings of soft tissue sarcomas with epithelioidmorphology and their distribution with respect tothe age, gender and location