Organizational choices and occupational health and safety risks prevention. An interpretation of Italian regulations

The social and economic costs of risks produced by organizations are becoming more and more evident and relevant. Enterprises are expected (and, sometimes, obliged) to become able to efficiently manage the risks they induce: industrial hazards, financial uncertainty, environmental risks, risk to safety and health in the workplace, etc. By adopting an organizational perspective, this contribution investigates the approaches to Occupational Health and Safety risks prevention that are promoted by the law (specifically, by Italian law). The goal of this paper is then to discuss the consistency of the norms with respect to the objectives of risks prevention and to understand their actual and potential impact on business practices

STIXnet: A Novel and Modular Solution for Extracting All STIX Objects in CTI Reports

The automatic extraction of information from Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) reports is crucial in risk management. The increased frequency of the publications of these reports has led researchers to develop new systems for automatically recovering different types of entities and relations from textual data. Most state-of-the-art models leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, which perform greatly in extracting a few types of entities at a time but cannot detect heterogeneous data or their relations. Furthermore, several paradigms, such as STIX, have become de facto standards in the CTI community and dictate a formal categorization of different entities and relations to enable organizations to share data consistently. This paper presents STIXnet, the first solution for the automated extraction of all STIX entities and relationships in CTI reports. Through the use of NLP techniques and an interactive Knowledge Base (KB) of entities, our approach obtains F1 scores comparable to state-of-the-art models for entity extraction (0.916) and relation extraction (0.724) while considering significantly more types of entities and relations. Moreover, STIXnet constitutes a modular and extensible framework that manages and coordinates different modules to merge their contributions uniquely and exhaustively. With our approach, researchers and organizations can extend their Information Extraction (IE) capabilities by integrating the efforts of several techniques without needing to develop new tools from scratch.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Your Attack Is Too DUMB: Formalizing Attacker Scenarios for Adversarial Transferability

Evasion attacks are a threat to machine learning models, where adversaries attempt to affect classifiers by injecting malicious samples. An alarming side-effect of evasion attacks is their ability to transfer among different models: this property is called transferability. Therefore, an attacker can produce adversarial samples on a custom model (surrogate) to conduct the attack on a victim's organization later. Although literature widely discusses how adversaries can transfer their attacks, their experimental settings are limited and far from reality. For instance, many experiments consider both attacker and defender sharing the same dataset, balance level (i.e., how the ground truth is distributed), and model architecture. In this work, we propose the DUMB attacker model. This framework allows analyzing if evasion attacks fail to transfer when the training conditions of surrogate and victim models differ. DUMB considers the following conditions: Dataset soUrces, Model architecture, and the Balance of the ground truth. We then propose a novel testbed to evaluate many state-of-the-art evasion attacks with DUMB; the testbed consists of three computer vision tasks with two distinct datasets each, four types of balance levels, and three model architectures. Our analysis, which generated 13K tests over 14 distinct attacks, led to numerous novel findings in the scope of transferable attacks with surrogate models. In particular, mismatches between attackers and victims in terms of dataset source, balance levels, and model architecture lead to non-negligible loss of attack performance.Comment: Accepted at RAID 202

Your Attack Is Too DUMB: Formalizing Attacker Scenarios for Adversarial Transferability

peer reviewedEvasion attacks are a threat to machine learning models, where adversaries attempt to affect classifiers by injecting malicious samples. An alarming side-effect of evasion attacks is their ability to transfer among different models: this property is called transferability. Therefore, an attacker can produce adversarial samples on a custom model (surrogate) to conduct the attack on a victim’s organization later. Although literature widely discusses how adversaries can transfer their attacks, their experimental settings are limited and far from reality. For instance, many experiments consider both attacker and defender sharing the same dataset, balance level (i.e., how the ground truth is distributed), and model architecture. In this work, we propose the DUMB attacker model. This framework allows analyzing if evasion attacks fail to transfer when the training conditions of surrogate and victim models differ. DUMB considers the following conditions: Dataset soUrces, Model architecture, and the Balance of the ground truth. We then propose a novel testbed to evaluate many state-of-the-art evasion attacks with DUMB; the testbed consists of three computer vision tasks with two distinct datasets each, four types of balance levels, and three model architectures. Our analysis, which generated 13K tests over 14 distinct attacks, led to numerous novel findings in the scope of transferable attacks with surrogate models. In particular, mismatches between attackers and victims in terms of dataset source, balance levels, and model architecture lead to non-negligible loss of attack performance

Clinical and virological findings in the ongoing outbreak of West Nile virus Livenza strain in northern Italy, July to September 2012.

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La conservazione della vegetazione nella riserva di Torre Guaceto

ItNel presente contributo vengono descritte le proposte di interventi finalizzati alla conservazione e la gestione della componente vegetazionale della Riserva dello Stato di Torre Guaceto (Provincia di Brindisi, Regione Puglia). Gli interventi proposti incidono su 3 principali tipi di habitat: le vegetazioni arboree ed arbustive, la zona umida ed il litorale sabbioso. Per ognuno di essi viene analizzato lo stato di conservazione dell’habitat, vengono individuati e descritti i fattori di disturbo, riconducibili quasi sempre ad una causa antropica, i tipi di interventi proposti ed i risultati attesi. Viene inoltre presentata la carta degli habitat d’interesse conservazionistico realizzata sulla base della carta della vegetazione di Torre Guaceto alla scala 1:10000. Gli habitat sono definiti sulla base dei tipi individuati e descritti dalla Direttiva Habitat 43/92/CEE e sulla base della legislazione regionale.EnThis issue deals with suggested operations for the purpose of the conservation and the management of the vegetational component of the Torre Guaceto National Reserve (Brindisi Province, Apulia Region). These operations affect three main habitat types: wood and scrub, wetland and sandy coast. The conservation status is analysed; the disturbances (mainly of them concerning human activity), the proposed operations and the expected outcomes are described for each of these habitat types. Moreover, a map of habitats of some conservation interest is presented; it is based on the Torre Guaceto vegetational map on a scale of 1:10000. Each habitat is defined according to both the 43/92/EEC Habitat Directive and the regional law

Prevalence of acute alcohol intoxication in Borgo Trento Hospital Emergency Department (Verona).

Introduction: Alcohol is an important factor weighting towards global disease burden, premature death and Disability-Adjusted Life Years. This study examines the burden imposed on the Borgo Trento Verona Hospital Emergency Department (ED) by patients with acute alcohol intoxication (AAI).Methods: A 6-year retrospective study was performed by reviewing medical records in all patients (≥16 years old) diagnosed with AAI. Clinical criteria for inclusion in the sample followed those defined in the Alcohol Intoxication Symptomsâ section of DSM-IV-TR. Ambiguous cases presenting traumas potentially related to AAI were confirmed positive using a Blood Alcohol Level (BAL) test before inclusion in the sample. Socio-demographic data, case history, timing of admission/discharge and outcome were collected for each patient.Results: One thousand five hundred forty-seven patients (males:females = 6.6:1) were included in the study. With regard to marital status, the crude rate within the sample shows that single and married subjects have a significantly higher prevalence (p<0.01). When demographic data of residents was taken into consideration, divorced/separated and single categories were significantly more represented (p<0.05).The admissions appeared fairly constant throughout the week with a higher prevalence of patients aged between 25-55 years, and a significant peak of the youngest age class on weekends. Higher rates of admission were recorded during the late afternoon and night.The triage code of admission appeared uniformly distributed along the week, with the highest prevalence of green code (67.7%), followed by yellow one (25.8%). The analysis of clinical symptoms and BAL highlights that moderate clinical severity concerns almost 50%, and clinically critical severity the 6.6% of cases of access.Admissions rates of foreign patients resulted to be 3 times higher compared to those of natives when adjusted to demographic data.Discussion: Social disadvantages such as foreign provenance and social difficulties as unemployment, low money intake, perception of loneliness, and dysfunction in family life were frequently identified in the sample. An exception was found within the youngest age group, where the AAI are mostly related to alcohol abuse during social outings over the weekend.EDs play a crucial role in helping patients with AAI, but prevention of alcohol abuse though implementation of social and sanitary health policies on all ages (but especially among the youngest) is essential

J.D. Thompson’s Organizations in Action 50th anniversary: a reflection

At the 50th anniversary of James D. Thompson’s fundamental book, Organizations in Action, TAO Digital Library proposes a reflection on this great master’s legacy and the evolution of organizational studies. Twelve researchers, from different disciplinary fields, analyze both the texts utilized for teaching and the contribution of several important journals, particularly in recent decades. The outcome is an overall picture that may stimulate different, divergent evaluations and, even more importantly, desirable, deeper reflections

An exploration of evaluation approaches for community based interventions for people living with HIV (PLHIV) with results applied to the ‘HOPE’ programme in Ghana

Background: The increase in the number of people living with HIV (PLHIV), especially in sub-Saharan Africa, is a major public health concern. To date, most attention has been paid to prevention strategies and clinical trials of therapy. In comparison, there have been very few studies of care and support programmes. The ‘HOPE’ programme is a major community-based care and support programme in Ghana. ‘HOPE’ provides nutritional support, skills training for employment, health education and psychological support for PLHIV and for those orphaned through AIDS. Therefore, it was seen by policy makers in the country as desirable that it should be evaluated. A PhD scholarship was funded and the researcher presenting this thesis was appointed. Broad Aims The overall aim was to carry out an evaluation of the ‘HOPE’ programme in Ghana in order to make wider recommendations for evaluation of community-based interventions (CBIs) in Ghana and Africa generally. The timing was less than ideal as many of the major decisions about the intervention had already been made and baseline data had been collected. Therefore, the preliminary aim was to explore a range of possible evaluation methods so that the most suitable approach could be selected. Thereafter, a range of more specific aims, objectives and research questions was identified. Methods: A ‘mixed methods’ approach was adopted. The first component was a desk-based analysis of the literature on the various evaluation approaches that might, at least in theory, be applied to an HIV/AIDS intervention like ‘HOPE’. From this, a decision was made to evaluate ‘HOPE’ in terms of structure, process and outcome. The second component operationalised this decision by reviewing HOPE’s working documents and conducting two pieces of field work: a quantitative and a qualitative study. The quantitative study was a structured questionnaire administered to 200 PLHIV on the ‘HOPE’ programme. The qualitative study consisted of 14 interviews with stakeholders directly involved in the programme implementation and 8 focus group discussions with the programme beneficiaries. Results: The desk-based analysis achieved three main outcomes. First, it set out in a systematic manner the different approaches to evaluation that could in theory have been applied to ‘HOPE’. It identified strengths and weaknesses and the perspectives behind each approach. Second, it set out and then summarised a detailed description of the ‘HOPE’ programme and the national context in which it operated. Third, it set the above within the context of global literature on HIV, community-based interventions and nutritional support programmes. The analysis of the quantitative data showed that beneficiaries were being provided with soy-fortified wheat and vegetable fortified oil at the time of the evaluation. On average, beneficiaries gained weight (Mean difference in weight was 2kg with 95% CI (1.1, 2.9), p-value < 0.001) and increased Body Mass Index (BMI) (Mean difference in BMI was 0.8units with 95% CI (0.4, 1.2), P-value < 0.001). Over a third of the beneficiaries (37.5%) was currently unemployed and only one in five of the beneficiaries had been trained in a skill that might have been useful to find employment: this, despite skills training for all being a programme goal. Multivariate analysis showed that the support group to which the beneficiary belonged was the most important determinant of a positive outcome. Qualitative components demonstrated perceived successes and challenges. Beneficiaries indicated that the anti-retroviral drugs were making them hungry and the food helped to alleviate that effect. They further indicated that the food was nutritious and contributed to their weight gain. Support groups have been sustained and membership increased. Some indicated that food should be more varied and some mentioned selling food to earn money to pay for their medications. Most of the beneficiaries indicated they were unemployed having lost their jobs as a result of stigmatisation. Only a few benefited from skills training leading to employment because of inadequate budgeting. Some who had been trained could not use their newly acquired skills because of lack of capital to start a business. To compound these weaknesses, most reported that they preferred petty trading to the skills offered. The monthly education and the training workshops generated hope, and improved knowledge of HIV/AIDS, promoted drug adherence and helped to reduce stigmatisation. The training of the PLHIV as peer educators is an effective method for HIV education and counselling since PLHIV listen to their peers more than health workers. Respondees predicted dissolution of the support groups when the programme ends. This is because they were not adequately involved in the decision making. Beneficiaries identified participation and cooperation as key prerequisites for sustainability but they also identified important weaknesses in ‘HOPE’ with respect to these criteria. Discussion: Despite the challenges presented by the timing and context of this study, it has been possible to carry out an evaluation that provides important learning. A mixed methods approach was appropriate and is likely to be useful in many similar evaluations. Beneficial outcomes were identified but these cannot be attributed, without qualification, to the intervention. Nonetheless, the findings indicated that participants were highly satisfied with the food support and monthly education. They were dissatisfied with the numbers trained in new skills and in other aspects of the skills training components. Also, the sustainability of the food component when the funding stops was a concern. However, the educational component could be sustained because peer educators could continue at very low cost. Most importantly, community involvement, using locally available resources, inter-sectoral collaboration and harnessing the motivation of local people were seen as key but underutilised ingredients. So, the results of the evaluation are encouraging but not conclusive. Nonetheless, care for people living with HIV is such an important problem that the desirability of conducting a cluster randomised controlled trial among a large number of support groups to assess the programme effectiveness on health, nutrition and economic status should be seriously considered despite the practical and ethical challenges implicit in such a recommendation.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo