Similarity-based Techniques for Trust Management

A network of people having established trust relations and a model for propagation of related trust scores are fundamental building blocks in many of todayŠs most successful e-commerce and recommendation systems. Many online communities are only successful if sufficient mu-tual trust between their members exists. Users want to know whom to trust and how muc

Evaluation of social capital among students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2016

Background: Social capital includes a series of issues and values, which is potentially in relation with social groups and organizations. Due to the importance of social capital as a determining factor in the health, this study aimed to evaluate the social capital in the students of the Isfahan University of Medical Science.   Methods: This survey was the first phase of a survey that was carried out in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences on 700 students. Students were selected by a stratified random sampling method. Data on social capital of students were collected using Bullen questionnaire. For data analysis, IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 22.0. software was used.     Results: The mean (SD) score of social capital of the students in this study were 62.11 (14.6), in which the lowest score belonged to the cooperation domain and the highest one belonged to the identity. The most important factors that related to the social capital of the students, included the gender (male: 58.82 (15.87) vs. female: 65.44 (15.87), P=0.028), residency (dormitory: 62.89 (14.3), live with family: 62.22 (14.27), personal home: 50.53 (20.63), P=0.006) and educational level (doctorate degree: 60.48 (13.79) vs. bachelor degree: 63.27 (15.07), P=0.019).    Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the social capital score of college students was in a moderate level and policymakers need to design interventions in order to improve students' social capital especially in the level of their participation in the society

The effect of physical and psychosocial occupational factors on the chronicity of low back pain in the workers of Iranian metal industry: A cohort study

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common problems among the workers of different industries. The role of occupational factors in causing the LBP has been indicated previously. LBP has great socio-economic costs and most of its costs are related to the chronic LBP. The aim of this study was to identify the occupational risk factors that are related to the progression of the LBP from acute to chronic phase. Methods: This cohort study has been conducted on 185 workers with acute LBP. Information related to their occupational exposure at baseline has been measured with a valid questionnaire using the self-report approach. Patients follow up was done monthly for three months after the start of the pain. Those workers whose occupational exposure had not changed during the follow up were divided into two groups of chronic LBP (n = 49) and cured (n = 136) according to the duration of the pain period (more or less than 3 months), and their job exposures were compared. Results: Among the physical and psychosocial risk factors, social support (OR = 0.466, CI = 0.231-0.940) and job satisfaction (OR = 0.455, CI = 0.232-0.891), and lifting weights more than 15kg (OR = 2.482, CI = 1.274-4.834) indicated a significant relationship with the chronicity of the LBP. After putting the variables into the regression model, only lifting > 15kg remained statistically significant. Conclusion: According to the observed relationship between these occupational risk factors (social support, job satisfaction, lifting > 15kg) and the chronicity of the LBP, there is hope that eliminating these factors in the workers with acute LBP will prevent its progression to the chronic phase

Cyber threat intelligence sharing: Survey and research directions

Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) sharing has become a novel weapon in the arsenal of cyber defenders to proactively mitigate increasing cyber attacks. Automating the process of CTI sharing, and even the basic consumption, has raised new challenges for researchers and practitioners. This extensive literature survey explores the current state-of-the-art and approaches different problem areas of interest pertaining to the larger field of sharing cyber threat intelligence. The motivation for this research stems from the recent emergence of sharing cyber threat intelligence and the involved challenges of automating its processes. This work comprises a considerable amount of articles from academic and gray literature, and focuses on technical and non-technical challenges. Moreover, the findings reveal which topics were widely discussed, and hence considered relevant by the authors and cyber threat intelligence sharing communities

On some Challenges for Online Trust and Reputation Systems

The Internet form a globally distributed network that provides a ubiquitous medium for interaction, the exchange of ideas, and commerce. The web is pervading our everyday lives in ways that were unimaginable even ten years ago. The evolving use of the web requires robust and efficient trust and reputation management mechanisms. During the past decade, online trust and reputation systems have provided cogent answers to emerging challenges in the global computing infrastructures relating to computer and network security, electronic commerce, virtual enterprises, social networks and cloud computing. The goal of these systems in such global computing infrastructures is to allow entities to reason about the trustworthiness of other entities and to make autonomous decisions on the basis of trust. This requires the development of computational trust models that enable entities to reason about trust and to verify the properties of a particular interaction. The robustness of these mechanisms, which is one of the critical factors for the success of this technology, is currently not being sufficiently addressed. The global computing infrastructure is highly dynamic with continuously appearing and disappearing entities and services. It is vital that the associated computational trust model is able to incorporate this dynamism and that equally flexible legislative and regulatory frameworks emerge. In this thesis, we present an overview of the characteristics of the existing characteristics of the existing online trust and reputation models and systems through a multidimensional framework, which can serve as a basis to understand the current state of the art in the area. The critical open challenges that limit the effectiveness of today’s trust and reputation systems are discussed by providing a comprehensive literature review. Furthermore, we present a set of our contributions as a way to address some of these challenges and propose prospectives for online trust and reputation systems

Modification of Carbon Nanotubes as an Effective Solution for Cancer Therapy

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) as a new class of nano-materials hold great potential for various biomedical applications. Owing to their unusual properties, carbon nanotubes have been extensively employed in electronics, nanotechnology and optics, among others. In spite of the great potential of carbon nanotubes in various domains of biomedicine, ineffcient dispersion in aqueous solutions and biological activities in vivo are still disputable. One important and feasible route in a struggle to overcome these obstacles is modification of CNTs with organic compounds and polymers, which have been widely studied and play a crucial role in biological and biomedical fields, particularly in the cancer therapy. This review focuses on the breakthrough of the recently used methods to functionalize onto the surface of carbon nanotubes with multiple chemical species in order to produce anticancer drug delivery systems for biomedical applications