DICOM Data from a Data Warehouse Design Perspective

Medical images play an essential role in electronic patient health care information for diagnosis, recommendation, and study. In radiology departments, the digitized imaging information for various modalities is stored in a standard Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) record. These digitized imaging records create very large volumes of electronic files in the medical information system. The records have two parts: text and image. The text part describes the details and specifications of the digitized images. This paper provides a methodology for storing the text imaging information in an integrated and centralized data warehouse for multiple medical facilities for enhanced information retrieval and analysis

The Development of a Teaching Strategy for Implementing a Real-World Business Project into Database Courses

Collaborations between business and academia provide valuable opportunities for students to connect classroom learning with practical work experience. To effectively reach a significant number of students, one approach is to meld a real-world business project and classroom assignment into a realistic business scenario that can be addressed by students within an academic course. This paper describes the process, challenges, and results encountered in a collaborative effort between a major health insurance provider and a local university to implement components of a business project as the final assignments in courses for introductory and advanced database systems. The approach generated significant enthusiasm among the student participants and promoted an improved awareness of current technological skills needed by business organizations

Structural changes of cardiac tissue in response to boldenone supplementation with or without alcoholic extract of jujuba fruit during resistance training in male Wistar rats

Background: Abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids has been linked to a variety of different cardiovascular side effects. The use of medicinal herbs has been shown to reduce disease and cardiovascular disorders. This study aimed at examining the structural changes of the cardiac tissue in response to boldenone supplementation along with the alcoholic extract of jujuba during resistance training in male Wistar rats. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 30 male Wistar rats aged 8-12 weeks (weight 202±9.34 g) were randomly divided into five groups: control, boldenone, extract of iujuba+boldenone, boldenone+resistance training and boldenone+resistance training+extract of jujuba. The resistance training program included climbing the ladder for 8 weeks, 3 days a week, 1 session training in a day and each session consisted of the 3 sets and 5 repetitions. Injection was conducted in depth in the hamstring once a week, on an appointed day. After anesthesia, autopsy was performed and the cardiac tissue was isolated. Results: The results showed that boldenone caused tissue damage, hyperemia, abnormal cytoplasm and unclear and dispersed nuclei. In the boldenone+resistance training group, the heart tissue had high levels of hyperemia and the muscle cells were a little abnormal. In the boldenone+jujube group, appearance of the tissue was normal and a restorative effect was evident in the tissue. Conclusion: It seems that boldenone can cause structural damage to the heart tissue and the resistance training along with the jujube extract can reduce some of the cardiovascular disorders (necrosis and inflammation) caused by the use of anabolic steroids

HyperDbg: Reinventing Hardware-Assisted Debugging (Extended Version)

Software analysis, debugging, and reverse engineering have a crucial impact in today's software industry. Efficient and stealthy debuggers are especially relevant for malware analysis. However, existing debugging platforms fail to address a transparent, effective, and high-performance low-level debugger due to their detectable fingerprints, complexity, and implementation restrictions. In this paper, we present HyperDbg, a new hypervisor-assisted debugger for high-performance and stealthy debugging of user and kernel applications. To accomplish this, HyperDbg relies on state-of-the-art hardware features available in today's CPUs, such as VT-x and extended page tables. In contrast to other widely used existing debuggers, we design HyperDbg using a custom hypervisor, making it independent of OS functionality or API. We propose hardware-based instruction-level emulation and OS-level API hooking via extended page tables to increase the stealthiness. Our results of the dynamic analysis of 10,853 malware samples show that HyperDbg's stealthiness allows debugging on average 22% and 26% more samples than WinDbg and x64dbg, respectively. Moreover, in contrast to existing debuggers, HyperDbg is not detected by any of the 13 tested packers and protectors. We improve the performance over other debuggers by deploying a VMX-compatible script engine, eliminating unnecessary context switches. Our experiment on three concrete debugging scenarios shows that compared to WinDbg as the only kernel debugger, HyperDbg performs step-in, conditional breaks, and syscall recording, 2.98x, 1319x, and 2018x faster, respectively. We finally show real-world applications, such as a 0-day analysis, structure reconstruction for reverse engineering, software performance analysis, and code-coverage analysis

HyperDbg: Reinventing Hardware-Assisted Debugging

Software analysis, debugging, and reverse engineering have a crucial impact in today's software industry. Efficient and stealthy debuggers are especially relevant for malware analysis. However, existing debugging platforms fail to address a transparent, effective, and high-performance low-level debugger due to their detectable fingerprints, complexity, and implementation restrictions. In this paper, we present StealthDbg, a new hypervisor-assisted debugger for high-performance and stealthy debugging of user and kernel applications. To accomplish this, StealthDbg relies on state-of-the-art hardware features available in today's CPUs, such as VT-x and extended page tables. In contrast to other widely used existing debuggers, we design StealthDbg using a custom hypervisor, making it independent of OS functionality or API. We propose hardware-based instruction-level emulation and OS-level API hooking via extended page tables to increase the stealthiness. Our results of the dynamic analysis of 10,853 malware samples show that StealthDbg's stealthiness allows debugging on average 22% and 26% more samples than WinDbg and x64dbg, respectively. Moreover, in contrast to existing debuggers, StealthDbg is not detected by any of the 13 tested packers and protectors. We improve the performance over other debuggers by deploying a VMX-compatible script engine, eliminating unnecessary context switches. Our experiment on three concrete debugging scenarios shows that compared to WinDbg as the only kernel debugger, StealthDbg performs step-in, conditional breaks, and syscall recording, 2.98x, 1319x, and 2018x faster, respectively. We finally show real-world applications, such as a 0-day analysis, structure reconstruction for reverse engineering, software performance analysis, and code-coverage analysis

Design of the Information Science and Systems (IS) Curriculum in a Computer and Information Sciences Department

Continuous technological changes have resulted in a rapid turnover of knowledge in the computing field. The impact of these changes directly affects the computer-related curriculum offered by educational institutions and dictates that curriculum must evolve to keep pace with technology and to provide students with the skills required by businesses. At the same time, accreditations of curricula from reviewing organizations provide additional guidelines and standardization for computing science as well as information science programs. One of the areas significantly affected by these changes is the field of information systems. This paper describes the evaluation and course structure for the undergraduate information science and systems program in the Computer and Information Sciences Department at the University of North Florida. A list of the major required and elective courses as well as an overview of the challenges encountered during the revision of the curriculum is given

The Evolution of an Advanced Database Course in an Information Systems Curriculum

With more areas in the field of database achieving capabilities for practical utilization in the business environment, it is becoming more and more imperative for academic database courses to re-evaluate and consider changes in the course content as well as teaching methodologies. The significant increase in the number of topics that could be covered in a database course requires considerations for shifting topics in the introductory database course and for adding an advanced database course to the curriculum. In response to the need to provide undergraduate students with an opportunity to learn more about current technology areas, such as data warehousing, data mining, and web databases, a second database course was recently added to the Information Systems curriculum at the University of North Florida. However, teaching advanced topics in a way that incorporates practical experiences with theoretical concepts presents a unique challenge for database instructors. This paper describes the experiences encountered with the addition of a second database course and the course content presented to undergraduate Information Systems students

Structural changes of cardiac tissue in response to boldenone supplementation with or without alcoholic extract of jujuba fruit during resistance training in male Wistar rats

Background: Abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids has been linked to a variety of different cardiovascular side effects. The use of medicinal herbs has been shown to reduce disease and cardiovascular disorders. This study aimed at examining the structural changes of the cardiac tissue in response to boldenone supplementation along with the alcoholic extract of jujuba during resistance training in male Wistar rats. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 30 male Wistar rats aged 8-12 weeks (weight 202±9.34 g) were randomly divided into five groups: control, boldenone, extract of iujuba+boldenone, boldenone+resistance training and boldenone+resistance training+extract of jujuba. The resistance training program included climbing the ladder for 8 weeks, 3 days a week, 1 session training in a day and each session consisted of the 3 sets and 5 repetitions. Injection was conducted in depth in the hamstring once a week, on an appointed day. After anesthesia, autopsy was performed and the cardiac tissue was isolated. Results: The results showed that boldenone caused tissue damage, hyperemia, abnormal cytoplasm and unclear and dispersed nuclei. In the boldenone+resistance training group, the heart tissue had high levels of hyperemia and the muscle cells were a little abnormal. In the boldenone+jujube group, appearance of the tissue was normal and a restorative effect was evident in the tissue. Conclusion: It seems that boldenone can cause structural damage to the heart tissue and the resistance training along with the jujube extract can reduce some of the cardiovascular disorders (necrosis and inflammation) caused by the use of anabolic steroids

Motor coordination and structural changes of hippocampus tissue in response to eight weeks of aerobic training and Ritalin consumption in hyperactive rats

Background: Changes in the structure of the hippocampus play a role in the development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The aim of this study was to evaluate the motor coordination and structural changes of the hippocampus tissue in response to an 8-week aerobic training program and Ritalin consumption in hyperactive rats. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 33 Wistar rats weighing 180-220g were randomly divided into 5 groups: 1) healthy control, 2) hyperactivity, 3) hyperactivity-aerobic training, 4) hyperactivity- Ritalin, and 5) hyperactivity-aerobic training-Ritalin and respond positively to the open field test. To induce ADHD in the rats, they were injected 10 mg/kg of L-NAME for 8 weeks (6 days per week) based on the weight of the rats. The drug group received 1 mg oral Ritalin per kg weight of rats daily for 8 weeks. The rats performed aerobic training 30 minutes a day and 7 days a week for 8 weeks. Results: The results showed that aerobic training and Ritalin consumption had no significant effect on weight (P=0.877) but had a significant effect on motor coordination (P=0.001) in hyperactive rats. In rats with the hyperactivity disorder, there was a slight change in the tissue and cellular structure, necrosis and tissue hyperemia as well as piconosis of the hippocampus tissue. Treadmill training along with Ritalin consumption reduced the tissue and cellular damage, necrosis, and also piconosis of the hippocampus tissue. Conclusion: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can cause the structural damage of the hippocampus tissue and treadmill exercises with Ritalin consumption may improve the damage to the hippocampal structure