AndroParse - An Android Feature Extraction Framework & Dataset

Android malware has become a major challenge. As a consequence, practitioners and researchers spend a significant time analyzing Android applications (APK). A common procedure (especially for data scientists) is to extract features such as permissions, APIs or strings which can then be analyzed. Current state of the art tools have three major issues: (1) a single tool cannot extract all the significant features used by scientists and practitioners (2) Current tools are not designed to be extensible and (3) Existing parsers do not have runtime efficiency. Therefore, this work presents AndroParse which is an open-source Android parser written in Golang that currently extracts the four most common features: Permissions, APIs, Strings and Intents. AndroParse outputs JSON files as they can easily be used by most major programming languages. Constructing the parser allowed us to create an extensive feature dataset which can be accessed by our independent REST API. Our dataset currently has 67,703 benign and 46,683 malicious APK samples

Wave Propagation Analysis using High-Order Finite Element Methods: Spurious Oscillations excited by Internal Element Eigenfrequencies

From a computational point of view, the numerical analysis of ultrasonic guided waves is still a very demanding task. Because of the high-frequency regime both a fine spatial and temporal discretization is required. To minimize the numerical costs, efficient and robust algorithms ought to be developed. One promising idea is therefore to focus on high-order finite element methods (ho-FEM).The current article investigates the behavior of the p-version of the finite element method (p-FEM) and the spectral element method (SEM) with respect to the existence of spurious oscillations in the solution. Convergence studies have shown that it is possible to observe non-physical oscillations under certain conditions. These parasitic vibrations, however, significantly deteriorate the accuracy of the simulation. For this reason, we analyse this phenomenon in detail and propose solutions to avoid its occurrence.Without loss of generality, we employ a two-dimensional plane strain model to derive a guideline as to how to avoid these spurious oscillations, placing a special emphasis on the relation between the element size, the polynomial degree of the high-order shape functions and the excitation frequency.Our results show that accurate simulations are possible if the model is generated according to the proposed methodology. Moreover, the implementation of the guideline into an existing finite element software is straightforward; these properties turn the method into a useful tool for practical wave propagation analyses

Age-related cognitive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and associated mental health changes in Germans

Restrictive means to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have not only imposed broad challenges on mental health but might also affect cognitive health. Here we asked how restriction-related changes influence cognitive performance and how age, perceived loneliness, depressiveness and affectedness by restrictions contribute to these effects. 51 Germans completed three assessments of an online based study during the first lockdown in Germany (April 2020), a month later, and during the beginning of the second lockdown (November 2020). Participants completed nine online cognitive tasks of the MyBrainTraining and online questionnaires about their perceived strain and impact on lifestyle factors by the situation (affectedness), perceived loneliness, depressiveness as well as subjective cognitive performance. The results suggested a possible negative impact of depressiveness and affectedness on objective cognitive performance within the course of the lockdown. The younger the participants, the more pronounced these effects were. Loneliness and depressiveness moreover contributed to a worse evaluation of subjective cognition. In addition, especially younger individuals reported increased distress. As important educational and social input has partly been scarce during this pandemic and mental health problems have increased, future research should also assess cognitive long-term consequences

Die dynamische Gefäßanalyse am Augenhintergrund (DVA): eine neue Methode zur Ermittlung der endothelialen Dysfunktion bei chronischer Herzinsuffizienz

Die chronische Herzinsuffizienz ist assoziiert mit einer reduzierten Bioverfügbarkeit von Stickstoffmonoxid (NO). Mehrere Studien berichteten über hohe Serum-Spiegel von asymmetrischen NG, NG-Dimethyl-L-Arginin (ADMA) bei der chronischen Herzinsuffizienz. Bei der retinalen Gefäßanalyse mittels Dynamic Vessel Analyzer (DVA) wird die Antwort der retinalen Arterien auf Flickerlicht gemessen. Stickstoffmonoxid ist hierbei der Mediator der retinalen Vasodilatator-Antwort auf Flickerlicht. Die Hypothese lautete, dass die retinale Gefäßantwort auf Flickerlicht bei Patienten mit einer dilatativen Kardiomyopathie (DCM), einer möglichen Genese der chronischen Herzinsuffizienz, reduziert ist und invers mit den Serum-ADMA-Spiegeln korreliert. 16 Patienten mit einer dilatativen Kardiomyopathie und 22 gesunde Teilnehmer wurden in die Studie eingeschlossen. Es erfolgte die Messung der Antwort der retinalen Arterien auf Flickerlicht als prozentuale Änderung über der Grundlinie und der Serum-ADMA-Spiegel

Determination of Additives in Cigarettes Utilizing Evolved Gas Analysis (EGA)

While additives to consumer products must be listed in order by amount, it is not required to report the actual amounts of these additives. Given that impacts on human health are dose dependent, knowledge of additive amounts would aid discussions of the safety of these compounds for inhalation. Additives for cigarettes include flavors, such as menthol, and propylene glycol, a humectant. Rapid determination of the amounts of menthol and propylene glycol additives in cigarettes was accomplished utilizing evolved gas analysis (EGA) – gas chromatography (GC) – flame ionization detection (FID). Careful preparation of samples and appropriate sample storage are critical components to this study. Menthol amounts in cigarettes were consistent with previous studies and this represents the first report of propylene glycol amounts

Large structural impact localization based on multi-agent system

In practical applications of structural health monitoring, a huge amount of distributed sensors are usually used to monitor structures of large dimensions. In order to obtain fast and accurate evaluation of a structure, a multi-agent system is introduced to manage different sensor sets and to fuse distributed information. In this paper, a multi-agent system based on impact location is presented to deal with the impact load localization problem for large-scale structures. The monitoring system firstly detects whether an impact event happens in the monitored subregion, and focuses on the impact source on the sub-region boundary to obtain the sensor network data with blackboard systems. Then the collaborative evaluation of both the acoustic emission and the inverse analysis localization method is employed to obtain precise and fast localization result. Finally, a reliable assessment for the whole structure is provided by fusing evaluation results from the sub-regions. The performance of the proposed multi-agent system is illustrated by means of experimental on a large aerospace aluminum plate structure. Extensive testing of the proposed system demonstrated its effectiveness for the impact load localization in each sub-region, particularly for impacts lying next to the borders of the sub-regions