All Your BASE Are Belong To You: Improved Browser Anonymity and Security on Android

Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world. Android holds a marketshare of 82% with iOS, its nearest rival, managing a distant 13.9%. Android’s unparalleled ubiquity makes it a popular target for malware and malvertising. Specifically, Android browsers have been targeted because many users spend great durations of time browsing the Internet. Unfortunately, as ways to track, fingerprint, and exploit unsuspecting users have increased, Browsing Anonymity and Security (BASE) has contrastingly stalled. Third party apps seeking to displace the oft-maligned stock browser tend to focus on user privacy and defer malware defense to default operating system protections. This thesis introduces a novel browser - Congo. Congo’s recursive definition, Congo’s Obeism Negates Gentile Occurrences, hints at an augmented browser with a hardened sandbox(malware deterrent) and reinforced privacy protection (malvertising deterrent). Importantly, Congo requires no kernel modification thus making it readily available to Android OS versions later than Froyo. A reference mechanism, by the name Kinshasa, underpins the integrity and security of Congo

Black Diasporic Disasters and the Africanization of Poverty in Western Print Media: a Case Study of Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian Earthquake in the New York Times

Thousands of poor, mainly black Americans were plastered across the news in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Correspondingly, after the devastating Haitian earthquake in January 2010, images and readings of black impoverishment were rife. I argue during both disasters, news media depicted both populations as Africanized, discursively linking blackness and black African-ness with impoverishment. I conducted a critical discourse analysis of eighty New York Times articles, comparing both cases and found that black subjects were homogenously depicted as both threatening and helpless, as “others from within” in coverage of Hurricane Katrina and “others from without” in coverage of the Haitian earthquake; the former being black others who pose an immediate threat by proximity to white majority populations, and the latter as black others whose implied inferiority helps bolster a sense of superiority amongst whites. I conclude that depictions of these essentialized and denigrated black others are problematic as they may inform the mistreatment and management of black populations worldwide

Dynamic and seismic health monitoring of a historic masonry tower

The paper presents some results of the continuous dynamic/seismic monitoring program carried out on the tallest historic tower in Mantua, Italy. This project follows an extensive diagnostic investigation aimed at assessing the structural condition of the tower after the Italian earthquakes of May 2012. A simple dynamic monitoring system was installed in the tower to evaluate the dynamic response especially to the expected sequence of far-field earthquakes and to check the possible evolution of the natural frequencies; the response to ambient excitation has been continuously collected in 1-hour records since late December 2012. The paper summarizes the results of the continuous dynamic monitoring for a period of 8 months, highlighting the effect of temperature on automatically identified natural frequencies, the dynamic response to few seismic events and the key role of permanent dynamic monitoring in the diagnosis of the investigated historic building

One-year dynamic monitoring of a historic tower: damage detection under changing environment

The paper summarizes the conceptual development of a vibration-based strategy suitable to the structural health monitoring of ancient masonry towers and exemplifies its application in the continuous dynamic monitoring of the tallest historic tower in Mantua, Italy. The presented approach is based on the installation of low-cost monitoring systems (consisting of few accelerometers and temperature sensors) and on the combined use of automated operational modal analysis, regression models to mitigate the environmental effects on identified natural frequencies and multivariate statistical tools to detect the occurrence of abnormal structural changes. The application of the adopted strategy to 15 months of continuously collected experimental data: (1) highlighted the effect of temperature on the automatically identified natural frequencies; (2) demonstrated the practical feasibility of damage detection methods based on natural frequency shifts; (3) provided a clear evidence of the possible key role of continuous dynamic monitoring in the preventive conservation of historic towers

Pre-diagnostic prompt investigation and static monitoring of a historic bell-tower

An extensive research program is currently in progress to assess the structural condition of the bell-tower of the Church Santa Maria del Carrobiolo in Monza, Italy and to address the preservation of the historic building. The research program was consequent to the direct survey of the tower, carried out within a wide cataloguing activity of the main religious buildings in Monza and highlighting a weak structural layout of the bell-tower. The paper presents the main results of the investigation program performed to date and including: (a) documentary research, systematic visual inspection on site and experimental evaluation of the fundamental period of the tower, carried out using an industrially engineered microwave interferometer; (b) installation of a static monitoring system aimed at surveying the opening of the main cracks, possibly related to the recent construction of an underground car park in the close neighbourhood of the church; (c) dynamic tests in operational conditions, performed using conventional high-sensitivity accelerometers with the twofold objective of validating a FE model of the tower and implementing the installation of a continuous dynamic monitoring system

One-year dynamic monitoring of a masonry tower

The paper presents some results of the continuous dynamic monitoring program carried out on the tallest historic tower in Mantua, Italy. This project follows an extensive diagnostic investigation aimed at assessing the structural condition of the tower after the Italian earthquakes of May 2012. A simple dynamic monitoring system was permanently installed in the upper part of the building and automatic modal identification was performed. The results allow to evaluate the effects of changing temperature on automatically identified natural frequencies, to verify the practical feasibility of damage detection methods based on natural frequencies shifts and provide clear evidence of the possible key role of continuous dynamic monitoring in the preventive conservation of historic towers

Complementarietà delle indagini termografiche e georadar nella diagnostica degli edifici

Le indagini non distruttive sugli edifici stanno avendo un progressivo sviluppo nell’ingegneria civile. Le tecniche di geofisica applicata trovano in questo settore numerose applicazioni e stimoli per nuove ricerche. I restauratori e gli ingegneri civili, dall’applicazione di queste tecnologie richiedono informazioni sulla geometria degli elementi non visibili, sul loro stato di ammaloramento e sulla matrice che compone i materiali dell’edificio. Una tale quantità di informazioni eterogenee richiede l’utilizzo di più sistemi basati su principi fisici di funzionamento diversi. In questo lavoro ci si è occupati dell’analisi delle potenzialità di individuazione e ricostruzione delle geometrie degli elementi non visibili di un edificio. Le tecnologie considerate sono state la Termografia (attiva e passiva) e il Georadar, metodologie differenti nei principi fisici di funzionamento, nelle possibilità operative e investigative. È presentato il caso di studio di una campagna di misure sperimentali Georadar e Termografica su di un edificio storico per verificare la complementarietà delle due metodologie

Attributes and Barriers Impacting the Diffusion of Information Communication Technologies (Icts) in Agricultural Colleges and Universities in the Developing World: Views of Aspiring Faculty

The sample for this descriptive-correlational study included 72 international graduate students from developing countries who were enrolled in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) at Oklahoma State University in the Fall semester of 2010. The study assessed the perceptions of the participants on the attributes and barriers impacting the diffusion of information communications technologies (ICTs) to advance agricultural education in colleges and universities in developing countries. The study also described the relationships between selected personal and professional characteristics of the study's participants and their perceptions on variables impacting the diffusion of ICTs. A survey instrument was used to collect data.Findings and Conclusions: A majority of the study's participants were males who averaged 30 years of age and 3.43 years of professional experience. Many of the respondents were from Asia and about one-half of them anticipated working in tertiary institutions in their home countries after graduation. Per Rogers' (2003) "stages of the innovation-decision process" (p. 138), as a group, the participants perceived their levels of innovativeness regarding the use of ICTs in academic learning to be between "unpersuaded" and "persuaded." The participants' views overall on the attributes associated with impacting the diffusion of ICTs in colleges and universities in developing countries were in the range of "agree." Although the respondents "agreed" that the attributes measured had the ability to advance the diffusion of ICTs, their views on two of the five attribute constructs (i.e., trialability and observability) were "neutral." The participants' perceptions overall regarding nine barrier constructs were in the range of "moderate." However, the participants perceived three barrier constructs (i.e., "financial concerns," "lack of technical expertise," and "lack of infrastructure") to be "strong barriers" individually. Excluding a few positive relationships that were not statistically significant, as participants' perceptions of agreement with the five attributes most frequently associated with the diffusion of innovations (i.e., per Rogers, 2003) increased, their ratings for the strength of barriers regarding the use of ICTs decreased.Department of Agricultural Education, Communications, and Leadershi

Static and dynamic monitoring of a Cultural Heritage bell-tower in Monza, Italy

A recent survey carried on the historic complex of Santa Maria del Carrobiolo in Monza (Italy) highlighted that the two sides of the bell-tower are directly supported by the load-bearing walls of the apse and South aisle of the neighboring church. After the discovery of the weak structural arrangement of the building, static and dynamic monitoring systems were installed in the tower to address its preservation. After a brief description of the tower and the results of the preliminary survey, the paper presents selected results of the continuous dynamic monitoring as well as the evidences provided by the static monitoring

Automated modal identification of a historic bell-tower

Continuous monitoring of the structural response under ambient excitation is especially suitable to Cultural Heritage structures because of the fully non-destructive and sustainable way of testing, that is performed by just measuring the dynamic response under ambient excitation and does not involve additional loads rather than those associated to normal operational conditions. Within the context of vibration-based monitoring of historic masonry structures, the paper presents the development of an automated procedure of modal parameters estimation and tracking, as well as its application in the continuous dynamic monitoring of a masonry bell-tower. The proposed algorithm of modal parameters estimation is based on the interpretation of the stabilization diagram associated to parametric identification methods and consists of three key steps aimed at: (1) filtering a high number of spurious poles in the stabilization diagram; (2) clustering the stabilization diagram; (3) improving the accuracy of the estimates. The developed procedure is exemplified using the data collected on the bell-tower of the church of San Gottardo in Corte in Milan. Following the practice adopted by the authors for masonry towers, a simple dynamic monitoring system is installed in the tower: the monitoring system includes two bi-axial seismometers (electro-dynamic velocity transducers), one 24-bit digitizer (6 channels, A/D converter, 8 Gb Ram on board for data storage) and one UMTS modem for data transfer. After a concise presentation of the developed automated algorithm, the paper focuses on the results obtained in several months of continuous monitoring of the tower