Privacy Engineering in Smart Home (SH) Systems: A Comprehensive Privacy Threat Analysis and Risk Management Approach

Addressing trust concerns in Smart Home (SH) systems is imperative due to the limited study on preservation approaches that focus on analyzing and evaluating privacy threats for effective risk management. While most research focuses primarily on user privacy, device data privacy, especially identity privacy, is almost neglected, which can significantly impact overall user privacy within the SH system. To this end, our study incorporates privacy engineering (PE) principles in the SH system that consider user and device data privacy. We start with a comprehensive reference model for a typical SH system. Based on the initial stage of LINDDUN PRO for the PE framework, we present a data flow diagram (DFD) based on a typical SH reference model to better understand SH system operations. To identify potential areas of privacy threat and perform a privacy threat analysis (PTA), we employ the LINDDUN PRO threat model. Then, a privacy impact assessment (PIA) was carried out to implement privacy risk management by prioritizing privacy threats based on their likelihood of occurrence and potential consequences. Finally, we suggest possible privacy enhancement techniques (PETs) that can mitigate some of these threats. The study aims to elucidate the main threats to privacy, associated risks, and effective prioritization of privacy control in SH systems. The outcomes of this study are expected to benefit SH stakeholders, including vendors, cloud providers, users, researchers, and regulatory bodies in the SH systems domain.Comment: The paper has 3 figures, 8 table

Universality and Language Specificity: Evidence from Arab and English Proverbs

All languages have proverbs that reflect their community’s attitudes, thoughts, values, and beliefs. Similarities between proverbs of different languages can be accounted for in cognitive semantics as motivated by shared human experience and universal schemas. At the same time, differences in the proverbs can be linked to the general idea of cultural diversity and hence language specificity in proverbs. This paper investigates twelve Arabic proverbs from a cognitive semantics viewpoint to determine their underlying schemas. The main aim is to arrive at a better understanding of the universal and language-specific nature of the Arabic proverbs. The methodology employed in the analysis is to explicate and determine, utilizing a cognitive semantics framework, whether the twelve Arabic proverbs have literal equivalence in English with shared schemas. In this regard, the Arabic proverbs and their English counterparts that have shared schemas are evidence for universality. While Arabic proverbs that have no literal equivalence in English and hence no shared schemas are good candidates in support of language specificity. Some of the proverbs might have shared schema but still, exhibit some variations that could be a manifestation of diversity of values and cultural background. Based on the analysis presented in this study, the Arabic proverbs examined fall into three categories: (i) proverbs that demonstrate universal construals; (ii) proverbs that demonstrate universal construal with variations; and (iii) proverbs that demonstrate language-specific construals

Fatty infiltration of the pancreas: a systematic concept analysis

Fatty infiltration of the pancreas (FIP) has been recognized for nearly a century, yet many aspects of this condition remain unclear. Regular literature reviews on the diagnosis, consequences, and management of FIP are crucial. This review article highlights the various disorders for which FIP has been established as a risk factor, including type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), pancreatitis, pancreatic fistula (PF), metabolic syndrome (MS), polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and pancreatic duct adenocarcinoma (PDAC), as well as the new investigation tools. Given the interdisciplinary nature of FIP research, a broad range of healthcare specialists are involved. This review article covers key aspects of FIP, including nomenclature and definition of pancreatic fat infiltration, history and epidemiology, etiology and pathophysiology, clinical presentation and diagnosis, clinical consequences, and treatment. This review is presented in a detailed narrative format for accessibility to clinicians and medical students

PREVALENCE AND RISK FACTORS OF SCHISTOSOMIASIS AMONG HAUSA COMMUNITIES IN KANO STATE, NIGERIA

SUMMARY Schistosomiasis remains one of the most prevalent neglected tropical diseases especially in Nigeria which has the greatest number of infected people worldwide. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 551 participants from Kano State, North Central Nigeria. Fecal samples were examined for the presence of Schistosoma mansoni eggs using the formalin-ether sedimentation method while the urine samples were examined using the filtration technique for the presence of S. haematobium eggs. Demographic, socioeconomic and environmental information was collected using a pre-validated questionnaire. The overall prevalence of schistosomiasis was 17.8%, with 8.9% and 8.3% infected with S. mansoni and S. haematobium, respectively and 0.5% presenting co-infection with both species. The multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that age < 18 years (OR = 2.13; 95% CI; 1.34- 3.41), presence of infected family members (OR = 3.98; 95% CI; 2.13-7.46), and history of infection (OR = 2.87; 95% CI; 1.87- 4.56) were the significant risk factors associated with schistosomiasis in these communities. In conclusion, this study revealed that schistosomiasis is still prevalent among Hausa communities in Nigeria. Mass drug administration, health education and community mobilization are imperative strategies to significantly reduce the prevalence and morbidity of schistosomiasis in these communities

The semantics of (fii) in taizzi dialect: A cultural variation perspective

In this paper, we adopt the framework of Cognitive Grammar developed by Langacker (1987) to provide a unified account of the different senses of the Arabic preposition (fii) as used in the Taizzi dialect, one of the dialects spoken in Yemen. The use of (fii) in the Taizzi dialect differs from its use in other dialects of Arabic or even Standard Arabic. That is, (fii) is cognitively characterized differently in the Taizzi dialect from (fii) in other Arabic dialects or (fii) in Standard Arabic. It remains a fact that despite the number of studies that dealt with prepositions, in general; prepositions received little attention and semantic analyses of prepositions remain inadequate (Cienki, 1989; Hamdi, 2002; Lunt, 1982). With regard to prepositions of Arabic, the main problem with the previous studies that dealt with them, in general, is that they examined them from a grammatical point of view focusing on their functions rather than their meanings. Moreover, these studies dealt with prepositions as used in Standard Arabic and were basically established upon the views of old Arab grammarians. The data presented and analyzed in this paper show that speakers of the Taizzi dialect developed the use of (fii) and extended its semantics to cover cognitive domains different from its use in Standard Arabic or other dialects of Arabic. However, what proves to be true about the use of (fii) in the Taizzi dialect need not necessarily be so about other dialects of Arabic. This reflects the cultural variance of prepositional usage in the Taizzi dialect in particular and other dialects of Arabic in general. The paper demonstrates that though speakers of the Taizzi dialect use (fii) in cognitive domains different from its use in Standard Arabic they still cognitively characterize the relation holding between the Trajector (TR) and the Landmark (LM) as a containment relation

Cyberbullying detection using emotion mining

The expansion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has led to developments in online communication. Regrettably, such convenience has been abused by online bullies, causing harm to others via threatening, harassing, humiliating, intimidating, manipulating, or controlling targeted victims. Cyberbullying can have a severe impact on a victim’s mental health, ranging from negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness, guilt, etc.) to depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Due to the potential harmful consequences, cyberbullying detection has become a pressing need in Internet usage governance. The research presented in this thesis is motivated by the fact that negative emotions can be caused by cyberbullying and proposes cyberbullying detection models that are trained based on contextual, emotion, and sentiment features. In this work, all critical steps were taken into consideration, from data preparation to deep learning models. There is a sparsity issue in cyberbullying datasets that encompasses all forms of cyberbullying, such as threatening, harassing, humiliating, intimidating, and manipulating or controlling targeted victims. To address this issue, this research utilized two datasets: the Toxic dataset, collected by the Conversation AI team, and the Twitter dataset. The dataset of cyberbullying generally faces an imbalance between its labels; therefore, sampling techniques were developed to reduce the imbalance ratio. After the datasets preparation, the next step in detecting cyberbullying was extracting textual features, such as syntactic, semantic, contextual, and emotion features. Nevertheless, emotion features were thoroughly investigated through the use of a lexiconbased deep learning model. To build an emotion detection model, the used emotion datasets were collected from twitter through hashtag keywords, and were categorized based on these keywords. Due to the potential inaccuracy of the hashtag labelling, a validation procedure was then carried out to authenticate the annotation of the emotion dataset labels. The validated dataset was then used to train the emotion detection model (EDM) using BERT as a pre-trained word representation model. This model was used to study and explore the emotions related to cyberbullying texts. The results indicate that 92% of cyberbullying emotions are categorized as negative. Emotions and sentiments were drawn out from cyberbullying datasets through the use of EDM and NRC lexicon for emotions and AFINN lexicon for sentiments. These features were fed to deep learning models to train cyberbullying detection models. A set of experiments were carried out to investigate the best set of features for cyberbullying detection. The findings indicate that incorporating emotions features can enhance the precision of detecting cyberbullying as this approach outperformed the use of BERT contextual features only. In the experiment that involved emotion features, the recall score was 0.87, which led to a 0.5 increase in the performance of cyberbullying detection compared to using only BERT. Similarly, incorporating sentiment features improved the model by 0.6 recall compared to only utilizing BERT

Prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus among Patients with Tuberculosis and Its Associated Factors in Sana’a, Yemen, 2021

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of tuberculosis’ (TB) ending barriers. TB patients with DM are at a higher risk than non-diabetes patients to develop complication, relapse and die. In Yemen, information on TB–DM comorbidity is lacking. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of diabetes among TB patients at the National Tuberculosis Center (NTC) in Sana’a. A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted. All TB patients aged >15 years who attended the NTC from July to November 2021 were screened for DM. Socio-demographic and behavioral information were collected through face-to-face interviews using questionnaires. A total of 331 TB patients were enrolled, 53% were males, 58% aged <40 years, and 74% were newly diagnosed with TB. Overall, DM prevalence was 18%. Higher rates of DM were found among TB patients that were male (OR = 3.0; 95% CI; 1.4–6.7), ≥50 years of age (OR = 10.8; 95% CI; 4.3–27.3), and those with a family history of diabetes (OR = 3.4; 95% CI; 1.6–6.9). Almost one fifth of TB patients had DM. The early detection of DM through immediate screening after a TB diagnosis and periodically during the course of treatment is crucial for TB patients’ optimal care. Dual diagnostics for reducing the dual burden of TB–DM comorbidity is recommended

Organizational citizenship behavior role in mediating the effect of transformational leadership on organizational performance in gold industry of Saudi Arabia

This paper mainly aims at investigating the mediating effect of organizational citizenship behaviour in the relationship between transformational leadership behaviour and organizational performance as well as the mediating effect of organizational citizenship behaviour in the relationship between psychological ownership, working environment, employee involvement, incentives, and employee motivation, and organizational performance. To achieve the objectives of the study, quantitative research approach was applied through a questionnaire specifically designed to collect primary information from the samples of the study, which consisted of (250) managers in gold shops in Jaddah. The collected data was analysed using SPSS 20.0 and Smart-PLS 3. The results showed that organization citizenship behaviour mediates the relationship between transformational leadership behaviour, psychological ownership and incentives, and organizational performance in the Saudi Arabian gold industry. Also, organization citizenship behaviour has no mediating effect on the relationship between working environment, employee involvement, employee motivation, and organizational performance in the Saudi Arabian gold industry. At the end of this study, the researcher recommended the need to encouraging the practice of organizational citizenship behaviours by developing a set of special regulations and instructions, and consider organizational citizenship behaviours as one of the important criteria in the annual performance appraisal models for employees, in addition to that, the quantitative method was adopted in this research to test research hypotheses, thus, future studies can rely on other methods qualitative or case study to verify the results of this research