Detecting vandalism on Wikipedia across multiple languages

Vandalism, the malicious modification or editing of articles, is a serious problem for free and open access online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia. Over the 13 year lifetime of Wikipedia, editors have identified and repaired vandalism in 1.6% of more than 500 million revisions of over 9 million English articles, but smaller manually inspected sets of revisions for research show vandalism may appear in 7% to 11% of all revisions of English Wikipedia articles. The persistent threat of vandalism has led to the development of automated programs (bots) and editing assistance programs to help editors detect and repair vandalism. Research into improving vandalism detection through application of machine learning techniques have shown significant improvements to detection rates of a wider variety of vandalism. However, the focus of research is often only on the English Wikipedia, which has led us to develop a novel research area of cross-language vandalism detection (CLVD). CLVD provides a solution to detecting vandalism across several languages through the development of language-independent machine learning models. These models can identify undetected vandalism cases across languages that may have insufficient identified cases to build learning models. The two main challenges of CLVD are (1) identifying language-independent features of vandalism that are common to multiple languages, and (2) extensibility of vandalism detection models trained in one language to other languages without significant loss in detection rate. In addition, other important challenges of vandalism detection are (3) high detection rate of a variety of known vandalism types, (4) scalability to the size of Wikipedia in the number of revisions, and (5) ability to incorporate and generate multiple types of data that characterise vandalism. In this thesis, we present our research into CLVD onWikipedia, where we identify gaps and problems in existing vandalism detection techniques. To begin our thesis, we introduce the problem of vandalism onWikipedia with motivating examples, and then present a review of the literature. From this review, we identify and address the following research gaps. First, we propose techniques for summarising the user activity of articles and comparing the knowledge coverage of articles across languages. Second, we investigate CLVD using the metadata of article revisions together with article views to learn vandalism models and classify incoming revisions. Third, we propose new text features that are more suitable for CLVD than text features from the literature. Fourth, we propose a novel context-aware vandalism detection technique for sneaky types of vandalism that may not be detectable through constructing features. Finally, to show that our techniques of detecting malicious activities are not limited to Wikipedia, we apply our feature sets to detecting malicious attachments and URLs in spam emails. Overall, our ultimate aim is to build the next generation of vandalism detection bots that can learn and detect vandalism from multiple languages and extend their usefulness to other language editions of Wikipedia

Astrocytes protect against diazinon- and diazoxon-induced inhibition of neurite outgrowth by regulating neuronal glutathione

Evidence demonstrating that human exposure to various organophosphorus insecticides (OPs) is associated with neurobehavioral deficits in children continues to emerge. The present study focused on diazinon (DZ) and its active oxygen metabolite, diazoxon (DZO), and explored their ability to impair neurite outgrowth in rat primary hippocampal neurons as a mechanism of developmental neurotoxicity. Both DZ and DZO (0.5-10. μM) significantly inhibited neurite outgrowth in hippocampal neurons, at concentrations devoid of any cyototoxicity. These effects appeared to be mediated by oxidative stress, as they were prevented by antioxidants (melatonin, N-t-butyl-alpha-phenylnitrone, and glutathione ethyl ester). Inhibition of neurite outgrowth was observed at concentrations below those required to inhibit the catalytic activity of acetylcholinesterase. The presence of astrocytes in the culture was able to provide protection against inhibition of neurite outgrowth by DZ and DZO. Astrocytes increased neuronal glutathione (GSH) in neurons, to levels comparable to those of GSH ethyl ester. Astrocytes depleted of GSH by l-buthionine-(S,R)-sulfoximine no longer conferred protection against DZ- and DZO-induced inhibition of neurite outgrowth. The findings indicate that DZ and DZO inhibit neurite outgrowth in hippocampal neurons by mechanisms involving oxidative stress, and that these effects can be modulated by astrocytes and astrocyte-derived GSH. Oxidative stress from other chemical exposures, as well as genetic abnormalities that result in deficiencies in GSH synthesis and regulation, may render individuals more susceptible to these developmental neurotoxic effects of OPs. © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Multi-material heterogeneous integration on a 3-D Photonic-CMOS platform

Photonics has been one of the primary beneficiaries of advanced silicon manufacturing. By leveraging on mature complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process nodes, unprecedented device uniformities and scalability have been achieved at low costs. However, some functionalities, such as optical memory, Pockels modulation, and magnetooptical activity, are challenging or impossible to acquire on group-IV materials alone. Heterogeneous integration promises to expand the range of capabilities within silicon photonics. Existing heterogeneous integration protocols are nonetheless not compatible with active silicon processes offered at most photonic foundries. In this work, we propose a novel heterogeneous integration platform that will enable wafer-scale, multi-material integration with active silicon-based photonics, requiring zero-change to existing foundry process. Furthermore, the platform will also pave the way to a class of high-performance devices. We propose a grating coupler design with peak coupling efficiency reaching 93%, an antenna with peak diffraction efficiency in excess of 97%, and a broadband adiabatic polarization rotator with conversion efficiency exceeding 99%

The impact of recentralization reform on corruption: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

How does government recentralization reform affect corruption? We utilize the pilot recentralization reform that transforms the legislative function, power, and responsibility of the district-level authorities to the higher level of the government organ in Vietnam as a quasi-natural experiment to address the aforementioned question. We find strong evidence that recentralization reform leads to lower corruption. The result illustrates that, among the firms which have the highest probability of making a bribe payment, those incorporated in jurisdictions experiencing the recentralization reform are 4.3% less likely to pay a bribe. In addition, the perception that bribery is a common and necessary practice is also significantly lowered in the post-recentralization period. We further show that the impact of recentralization is stronger for firms which lack a political connection. Overall, these results shed light on the real impact of the government recentralization reform and also the determinants of corruption, thereby providing important policy implications for policymakers to create a more conducive business environment

Ethanol Induces Cholesterol Efflux and Up-regulates ATP-binding Cassette Cholesterol Transporters in Fetal Astrocytes

Cholesterol plays an important role during brain development, since it is involved in glial cell proliferation, neuronal survival and differentiation, and synaptogenesis. Astrocytes produce large amounts of brain cholesterol and produce and release lipoproteins containing apoE that can extract cholesterol from CNS cells for elimination. We hypothesized that some of the deleterious effects of ethanol in the developing brain may be due to the disruption of cholesterol homeostasis in astrocytes. This study investigates the effect of ethanol on cholesterol efflux mediated by ATP-binding cassette (ABC) cholesterol transporters. In fetal rat astrocytes in culture, ethanol caused a concentration-dependent increase in cholesterol efflux and increased the levels of ABCA1 starting at 25 mm. Similar effects of ethanol on cholesterol efflux and ABCA1 were also observed in fetal human astrocytes. In addition, ABCA1 levels were increased in the brains of 7-day-old pups treated for 3 days with 2, 4, or 6 g/kg ethanol. Ethanol also increased apoE release from fetal rat astrocytes, and conditioned medium prepared from ethanol-treated astrocytes extracted more cholesterol than conditioned medium from untreated cells. In addition, ethanol increased the levels of another cholesterol transporter, ABCG1. Ethanol did not affect cholesterol synthesis and reduced the levels of intracellular cholesterol in rat astrocytes. Retinoic acid, which induces teratogenic effects similarly to ethanol, also caused up-regulation of ABCA1 and ABCG1

Sustainable technology in developed countries: waste municipal management

As more studies were conducted and global events unfold, a greater emphasis is being placed on the importance of preserving the Earth's natural resources and cycles before we face a catastrophic climate crisis. Thus, developed countries are constantly adapting their policies and legislation to promote green development for the sake of sustainable development, which benefits both the environment and the socioeconomic segment. As populations grow and living standards improve, more waste is generated. Appropriate municipal waste management is necessary to avoid harm to the environment, wildlife, and human health. Sustainable municipal solid waste management is even included in the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to improve the world's environment and economy. The European Union (EU) member states' waste management systems can be considered exemplary. In some countries, landfills have been prohibited, promoting the use of more sustainable technologies such as organic waste incineration, recycling, and composting. However, a divide exists between member countries, with some lagging behind in terms of waste management strategies. Thus, this paper examined the current state of municipal waste in EU member states, followed by a review of the various disposal technologies implemented. The difficulties and environmental concerns that must be overcome are discussed, as are the recommendations and possible future directions

Factors associated with 90-day mortality in Vietnamese stroke patients: Prospective findings compared with explainable machine learning, multicenter study

The prevalence and predictors of mortality following an ischemic stroke or intracerebral hemorrhage have not been well established among patients in Vietnam. 2885 consecutive diagnosed patients with ischemic stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage at ten stroke centres across Vietnam were involved in this prospective study. Posthoc analyses were performed in 2209 subjects (age was 65.4 ± 13.7 years, with 61.4% being male) to explore the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors associated with 90-day mortality following treatment. An explainable machine learning model using extreme gradient boosting and SHapley Additive exPlanations revealed the correlation between original clinical research and advanced machine learning methods in stroke care. In the 90 days following treatment, the mortality rate for ischemic stroke was 8.2%, while for intracerebral hemorrhage, it was higher at 20.5%. Atrial fibrillation was an elevated risk of 90-day mortality in the ischemic stroke patient (OR 3.09; 95% CI 1.90–5.02, p 0.05). The baseline NIHSS score was a significant predictor of 90-day mortality in both patient groups. The machine learning model can predict a 0.91 accuracy prediction of death rate after 90 days. Age and NIHSS score were in the top high risks with other features, such as consciousness, heart rate, and white blood cells. Stroke severity, as measured by the NIHSS, was identified as a predictor of mortality at discharge and the 90-day mark in both patient groups

Impact of climate change on meteorological, hydrological and agricultural droughts in the Lower Mekong River Basin: a case study of the Srepok Basin, Vietnam

peer reviewedThe objective of this study is to assess future changes in meteorological, hydrology and agricultural droughts under the impact of changing climate in the Srepok River Basin, a subbasin of LMB, using three drought indices; standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized runoff index (SRI) and standardized soil moisture index (SSWI). The well-calibrated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used as a simulation tool to estimate the features of meteorological, hydrological and agricultural droughts. The climate data for the 2016–2040 period is obtained from four different regional climate models; HadGEM3-RA, SNU-MM5, RegCM4 and YSU-RSM, which are downscaled from the HadGEM2-AO GCM. The results show that the severity, duration and frequency of droughts are predicted to increase in the near future for this region. Moreover, the meteorological drought is less sensitive to climate change than the hydrological and agricultural droughts; however, it has a stronger correlation with the hydrological and agricultural droughts as the accumulation period is increased. These findings may be useful for water resources management and future planning for mitigation and adaptation to the climate change impact in the Srepok River Basin

SIP-MBA: A secure IoT platform with brokerless and micro-service architecture

The Internet of Things is one of the most interesting technology trends today. Devices in the IoT network are often geared towards mobility and compact in size, thus having a rather weak hardware configuration. There are many light weight protocols, tailor-made suitable for limited processing power and low energy consumption, of which MQTT is the typical one. The current MQTT protocol supports three types of quality-of-service (QoS) and the user has to trade-off the security of the packet transmission by transmission rate, bandwidth and energy consumption. The MQTT protocol, however, does not support packet storage mechanisms which means that when the receiver is interrupted, the packet cannot be retrieved. In this paper, we present a broker-less SIP-MBA Platform, designed for micro-service and using gRPC protocol to transmit and receive messages. This design optimizes the transmission rate, power consumption and transmission bandwidth, while still meeting reliability when communicating. Besides, we implement users and things management mechanisms with the aim of improving security issues. Finally, we present the test results by implementing a collect data service via gRPC protocol and comparing it with streaming data by using the MQTT protocol.Web of Science12759358

IoHT-MBA: An Internet of Healthcare Things (IoHT) platform based on microservice and brokerless architecture

Internet of Thing (IoT), currently, is one of the technology trends that are most interested. IoT can be divided into five main areas including: Health-care, Environmental, Smart city, Commercial and Industrial. The IoHT-MBA Platform is considered the backbone of every IoT architecture, so the optimal design of the IoHT-MBA Platform is essential issue, which should be carefully considered in the different aspects. Although, IoT is applied in multiple domains, however, there are still three main features that are challenge to improve: i) data collection, ii) users, devices management, and iii) remote device control. Today's medical IoT systems, often too focused on the big data or access control aspects of participants, but not focused on collecting data accurately, quickly, and efficiently; power redundancy and system expansion. This is very important for the medical sector - which always prioritizes the availability of data for therapeutic purposes over other aspects. In this paper, we introduce the IoHT Platform for Healthcare environment which is designed by microservice and brokerless architecture, focusing strongly on the three aforementioned characteristics. In addition, our IoHT Platform considers the five other issues including (1) the limited processing capacity of the devices, (2) energy saving for the device, (3) speed and accurate of the data collection, (4) security mechanisms and (5) scalability of the system. Also, in order for the IoHT Platform to be suitable for the field of health monitoring, we also add realtime alerts for the medical team. In the evaluation section, moreover, we describe the evaluation to prove the effectiveness of the proposed IoHT Platform (i.e. the proof-of-concept) in the performance, non-error, and non affected by geographical distance. Finally, a complete code solution is publicized on the authors' GitHub repository to engage further reproducibility and improvement.Web of Science12760159