Towards a more systematic approach to secure systems design and analysis

The task of designing secure software systems is fraught with uncertainty, as data on uncommon attacks is limited, costs are difficult to estimate, and technology and tools are continually changing. Consequently, experts may interpret the security risks posed to a system in different ways, leading to variation in assessment. This paper presents research into measuring the variability in decision making between security professionals, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of security advice given to software system designers. A set of thirty nine cyber-security experts took part in an exercise in which they independently assessed a realistic system scenario. This study quantifies agreement in the opinions of experts, examines methods of aggregating opinions, and produces an assessment of attacks from ratings of their components. We show that when aggregated, a coherent consensus view of security emerges which can be used to inform decisions made during systems design

A comparison of the ballistic behaviour of conventionally sintered and additively manufactured alumina

Production of ceramic armour solutions on-demand/in-theatre would have significant logistical and military advantages. However, even assuming that such technologies could be successfully deployed in the field, such near net-shape manufacturing technology is relatively immature compared to conventional sintering of ceramics. In this study, the ballistic performance of a series of additively manufactured (AM)/rapidly-prototyped (RP) alumina tiles of 97.2% of the density of Sintox FA™ were investigated using both forward- and reverse-ballistic experiments. These experiments, undertaken with compressed gas-guns, employed the depth-of-penetration technique and flash X-ray as primary diagnostics to interrogate both efficiency of penetration and projectile-target interaction, respectively. The RP alumina was found to exhibit useful ballistic properties, successfully defeating steel-cored (AP) 7.62 × 39 mm BXN rounds at velocities of up-to c.a. 850 m/s, while exhibiting comparable failure modes to conventionally sintered armour-grade Sintox FA™. However, where a <1% by vol. Cu dopant was introduced into the RP material failure modes changed dramatically with performance dropping below that of conventionally sintered alumina. Overall, the results from both sets of experiments were complimentary and clearly indicated the potential of such RP materials to play an active role in provision of real-world body armour solutions provided quality control of the RP material can be maintained

On differences in the equation-of-state for a selection of seven representative mammalian tissue analogue materials

Tissue analogues employed for ballistic purposes are often monolithic in nature, e.g. ballistic gelatin and soap, etc. However, such constructs are not representative of real-world biological systems. Further, ethical considerations limit the ability to test with real-world tissues. This means that availability and understanding of accurate tissue simulants is of key importance. Here, the shock response of a wide range of ballistic simulants (ranging from dermal (protective / bulk) through to skeletal simulant materials) determined via plate-impact experiments are discussed, with a particular focus on the classification of the behaviour of differing simulants into groups that exhibit a similar response under high strain-rate loading. Resultant Hugoniot equation-of-state data (Us-up; P-v) provides appropriate feedstock materials data for future hydrocode simulations of ballistic impact events

The effects of quasi-one-dimensional shock on Escherichia coli while controlling pressure and temperature

The response of microorganisms to high pressures is of growing interest in the literature, regarding areas of research including the sterilisation of foodstuffs, panspermia and, more generally, the study of extremophiles. When examining organisms under shock pressure, there are a number of caveats that need to be considered, including temperature and the nature of the shock wave front. Both of these caveats have been explored in this study through the application of the plate impact technique to create quasi-one-dimensional shock waves with controlled shock fronts through bacterial targets. This was achieved using typical planar flyer plates to study the dynamic pressure response of the bacterium, Escherichia coli NCTC 10538. Additionally, in order to create an adiabatic, off-Hugoniot loading path, a novel graded areal density flyer produced by the Surfi-Sculpt® approach was used to assess the effects of lowering temperature during shock on E. coli growth rates. The maximum temperature generated by a Surfi-Sculpt® flyer impact was 5 K less than that produced by the planar flyer analogue. Higher growth rates of bacterial colonies post-impact by the Surfi-Sculpt® flyer compared to those by the planar flyer were observed, with this behaviour determined to be a possible function of the nature, although temperature was also decreased with the use of this adiabatic ramp loading technique. In an effort to purposefully increase pressure and temperature for the E. coli samples, a modified form of a previously developed bacterial encapsulation system was also employed in this study, allowing pressures of up to 10 GPa and growth rates of up to 0.09% to be reached

Changes in agonist neural drive, hypertrophy and pre-training strength all contribute to the individual strength gains after resistance training

© 2017 The Author(s)Purpose: Whilst neural and morphological adaptations following resistance training (RT) have been investigated extensively at a group level, relatively little is known about the contribution of specific physiological mechanisms, or pre-training strength, to the individual changes in strength following training. This study investigated the contribution of multiple underpinning neural [agonist EMG (QEMGMVT), antagonist EMG (HEMGANTAG)] and morphological variables [total quadriceps volume (QUADSVOL), and muscle fascicle pennation angle (QUADSθp)], as well as pre-training strength, to the individual changes in strength after 12 weeks of knee extensor RT. Methods: Twenty-eight healthy young men completed 12 weeks of isometric knee extensor RT (3/week). Isometric maximum voluntary torque (MVT) was assessed pre- and post-RT, as were simultaneous neural drive to the agonist (QEMGMVT) and antagonist (HEMGANTAG). In addition QUADSVOL was determined with MRI and QUADSθp with B-mode ultrasound. Results: Percentage changes (∆) in MVT were correlated to ∆QEMGMVT (r = 0.576, P = 0.001), ∆QUADSVOL (r = 0.461, P = 0.014), and pre-training MVT (r = −0.429, P = 0.023), but not ∆HEMGANTAG (r = 0.298, P = 0.123) or ∆QUADSθp (r = −0.207, P = 0.291). Multiple regression analysis revealed 59.9% of the total variance in ∆MVT after RT to be explained by ∆QEMGMVT (30.6%), ∆QUADSVOL (18.7%), and pre-training MVT (10.6%). Conclusions: Changes in agonist neural drive, quadriceps muscle volume and pre-training strength combined to explain the majority of the variance in strength changes after knee extensor RT (~60%) and adaptations in agonist neural drive were the most important single predictor during this short-term intervention

Late Holocene isotope hydrology of Lake Qinghai, NE Tibetan Plateau: effective moisture variability and atmospheric circulation changes

A sub-centennial-resolution record of lacustrine carbonate oxygen isotopes (δ&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;C&lt;/sub&gt;) from the closed-basin Lake Qinghai on the NE Tibetan Plateau shows pronounced variability over the past 1500 years. Changes in δ&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;C&lt;/sub&gt; in hydrologically closed lakes are often interpreted in terms of changing effective moisture. Under this interpretation our record would imply increasing effective moisture during the Little Ice Age (LIA) compared to the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). However, independent evidence from other archives strongly suggests the Asian summer monsoon was stronger during the MWP and weakened during the LIA. Controls other than effective moisture (the balance of water inputs over evaporative loss) must therefore have contributed to the δ&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;C&lt;/sub&gt; values. We propose the LIA signal in Lake Qinghai resulted from a reduction in evaporation caused by colder air temperatures, coupled with a decrease in oxygen isotope composition of input waters as a result of an increase in the relative importance of westerly-derived precipitation. Our results caution against simplistic interpretations of carbonate oxygen isotope records from hydrologically closed lakes and suggest all possible controlling factors must be taken into account in order to avoid misleading palaeoclimatic reconstructions

Pressure tolerance of Artemia cysts compressed in water medium

The high pressure tolerance of cysts of Artemia salina was investigated up to several GPa in water. No survival was observed after exposure to 1.0 GPa for 15 min. After exposure to 2.0 GPa for the same time duration, the hatching rate had recovered to 33%, but decreased to 8% following compression at 7.5 GPa. This contrasts with results using Fluorinert™ as the pressure-transmitting medium where 80–88% recovery was observed. The lower survival rate in water is accompanied by swelling of the eggs, indicating that liquid H2O close to the ice-VI crystallization pressure penetrated inside the eggs. This pressure exceeds the stability limit for proteins and other key biomolecules components within the embryos that could not be resuscitated. Rehydration takes several minutes and so was not completed for all samples compressed to higher pressures, prior to ice-VI formation, resulting in renewed survival. However H2O penetration inside the shell resulted in increased mortalit

The importance of considering both depth of penetration and crater volume in forwards-ballistic penetrative experiments

The most common method of analysing armour performance is the Depth of Penetration (DoP). However, this one-dimensional measurement does not provide insight into the method of penetration or energy absorbed by the target; the crater could be particularly narrow or very wide and yield the same DoP. Analysis of the crater through Crater Volume (CV) provides a more detailed metric to be used alongside DoP to visualise the crater, indicating whether energy was dispersed over a large area. CV provides a wider insight into how a material resisted penetration events, giving evidence of potential defeat mechanisms. Digital reconstruction of the craters using X-ray radiographs or Computed Tomography (CT) scanning can also provide a useful tool for computational models to be compared against. The simple calculation of CV through X-ray radiography and image processing has been demonstrated to be accurate to within ±6% of the CT scanned CV. Success in utilising this analytical tool was demonstrated through comparison of three armour configurations. A consistent difference in the ratio of DoP:CV was seen between steel targets, ceramic-steel targets and ceramic-air-steel targets, indicating variation in the defeat mechanism between the three target configurations

Trends in Suicidology: Personality as an Endophenotype for Molecular Genetic Investigations

In studying the genetics of suicide, should personality be used as an endophenotype (an intermediate trait lying somewhere on the developmental pathway from genes to phenotype)

Double Non-Global Logarithms In-N-Out of Jets

We derive the leading non-global logarithms (NGLs) of ratios of jet masses m_{1,2} and a jet energy veto \Lambda due to soft gluons splitting into regions in and out of jets. Such NGLs appear in any exclusive jet cross section with multiple jet measurements or with a veto imposed on additional jets. Here, we consider back-to-back jets of radius R produced in e^+e^- collisions, found with a cone or recombination algorithm. The leading NGLs are of the form \alpha_s^2 \ln^2(\Lambda/m_{1,2}) or \alpha_s^2\ln^2(m_1/m_2). Their coefficients depend both on the algorithm and on R. We consider cone, \kt, anti-\kt, and Cambridge-Aachen algorithms. In addition to determining the full algorithmic and R dependence of the leading NGLs, we derive new relations among their coefficients. We also derive to all orders in \alpha_s a factorized form for the soft function S(k_L,k_R,\Lambda) in the cross section \sigma(m_1,m_2,\Lambda) in which dependence on each of the global logs of \mu/k_L, \mu/k_R and \mu/\Lambda determined by the renormalization group are separated from one another and from the non-global logs. The same kind of soft function, its associated non-global structure, and the algorithmic dependence we derive here will also arise in exclusive jet cross sections at hadron colliders, and must be understood and brought under control to achieve precise theoretical predictions.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. v2: minor edits, additional discussion in Introduction. v3: version published in JHE