Federated Authentication using the Cloud (Cloud Aura)

Individuals, businesses and governments undertake an ever-growing range of activities online and via various Internet-enabled digital devices. Unfortunately, these activities, services, information and devices are the targets of cybercrimes. Verifying the user legitimacy to use/access a digital device or service has become of the utmost importance. Authentication is the frontline countermeasure of ensuring only the authorised user is granted access; however, it has historically suffered from a range of issues related to the security and usability of the approaches. Traditionally deployed in a point-of-entry mode (although a number of implementations also provide for re-authentication), the intrusive nature of the control is a significant inhibitor. Thus, it is apparent that a more innovative, convenient and secure user authentication solution is vital. This thesis reviews the authentication methods along with the current use of authentication technologies, aiming at developing a current state-of-the-art and identifying the open problems to be tackled and available solutions to be adopted. It also investigates whether these authentication technologies have the capability to fill the gap between the need for high security whilst maximising user satisfaction. This is followed by a comprehensive literature survey and critical analysis of the existing research domain on continuous and transparent multibiometric authentication. It is evident that most of the undertaken studies and proposed solutions thus far endure one or more shortcomings; for instance, an inability to balance the trade-off between security and usability, confinement to specific devices, lack or negligence of evaluating users’ acceptance and privacy measures, and insufficiency or absence of real tested datasets. It concludes that providing users with adequate protection and convenience requires innovative robust authentication mechanisms to be utilised in a universal manner. Accordingly, it is paramount to have a high level of performance, scalability, and interoperability amongst existing and future systems, services and devices. A survey of 302 digital device users was undertaken and reveals that despite the widespread interest in more security, there is a quite low number of respondents using or maintaining the available security measures. However, it is apparent that users do not avoid applying the concept of authentication security but avoid the inconvenience of its current common techniques (biometrics are having growing practical interest). The respondents’ perceptions towards Trusted Third-Party (TTP) enable utilising biometrics for a novel authentication solution managed by a TTP working on multiple devices to access multiple services. However, it must be developed and implemented considerately. A series of experimental feasibility analysis studies disclose that even though prior Transparent Authentication Systems (TAS) models performed relatively well in practice on real live user data, an enhanced model utilising multibiometric fusion outweighs them in terms of the security and transparency of the system within a device. It is also empirically established that a centralised federated authentication approach using the Cloud would help towards constructing a better user profile encompassing multibiometrics and soft biometric information from their multiple devices and thus improving the security and convenience of the technique beyond those of unimodal, the Non-Intrusive and Continuous Authentication (NICA), and the Weighted Majority Voting Fusion (WMVF) and what a single device can do by itself. Furthermore, it reduces the intrusive authentication requests by 62%-74% (of the total assumed intrusive requests without operating this model) in the worst cases. As such, the thesis proposes a novel authentication architecture, which is capable of operating in a transparent, continuous and convenient manner whilst functioning across a range of digital devices – bearing in mind it is desirable to work on differing hardware configurations, operating systems, processing capabilities and network connectivity but they are yet to be validated. The approach, entitled Cloud Aura, can achieve high levels of transparency thereby being less dependent on secret-knowledge or any other intrusive login and leveraging the available devices capabilities without requiring any external sensors. Cloud Aura incorporates a variety of biometrics from different types, i.e. physiological, behavioural, and soft biometrics and deploys an on-going identity confidence level based upon them, which is subsequently reflected on the user privileges and mapped to the risk level associated to them, resulting in relevant reaction(s). While in use, it functions with minimal processing overhead thereby reducing the time required for the authentication decision. Ultimately, a functional proof of concept prototype is developed showing that Cloud Aura is feasible and would have the provisions of effective security and user convenience.Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Kingdom of Saudi Arabi

A conceptual model for federated authentication in the cloud

Authentication is a key security control for any computing system, whether that is a PC, server, laptop, tablet or mobile phone. However, authentication is traditionally poorly served, with existing implementations falling foul of a variety of weaknesses. Passwords are poorly selected, reused and shared (to name but a few). Research has suggested novel approaches to authentication such as transparent authentication and cooperative and distributed authentication. However, these technologies merely focus upon individual platforms rather than providing a universal and federated authentication approach that can be used across technologies and services. The advent of cloud computing, its universal connectivity, scalability and flexibility, offers a new opportunity of achieving usable and convenient authentication seamlessly in a technology and service independent fashion. The approach introduces a new dedicated authentication provider - the Managed Authentication Service Provider - that is able to provide state-of-the-art centralised verification of authenticity. However, relying upon such an environment also introduces a range of technology, privacy and trust-related issues that must be overcome

A conceptual model for federated authentication in the cloud

Authentication is a key security control for any computing system, whether that is a PC, server, laptop, tablet or mobile phone. However, authentication is traditionally poorly served, with existing implementations falling foul of a variety of weaknesses. Passwords are poorly selected, reused and shared (to name but a few). Research has suggested novel approaches to authentication such as transparent authentication and cooperative and distributed authentication. However, these technologies merely focus upon individual platforms rather than providing a universal and federated authentication approach that can be used across technologies and services. The advent of cloud computing, its universal connectivity, scalability and flexibility, offers a new opportunity of achieving usable and convenient authentication seamlessly in a technology and service independent fashion. The approach introduces a new dedicated authentication provider - the Managed Authentication Service Provider - that is able to provide state-of-the-art centralised verification of authenticity. However, relying upon such an environment also introduces a range of technology, privacy and trust-related issues that must be overcome

Stance in Advanced Academic Writing by Saudi EFL Postgraduates: A Corpus-Based Study of Critique Writing

Whether the postgraduate students in the EFL context are adequately trained to express their authorial voice in academic writing in an appropriate tone has not been clarified enough in the literature. The aim of this study is to explore the linguistic resources used by Saudi postgraduate students of Applied Linguistics to construct stance when they write critique essays. To achieve this goal, a corpus of 78000 words was built from 73 critique essays collected in five years. To analyze this corpus, LancsBox corpus analysis software was used to generate the concordances with frequencies of key words in context. The model of corpus analysis used was Hyland’s (2005) which views stance as a construct within a model of interaction in academic discourse that comprises boosters, hedges, attitude markers, and self-mentions. The major findings of the study showed that the most frequently used stance markers were hedges, followed by attitude markers, then boosters, and finally self-mentions. In addition, the linguistic resources used in these strategies of stance construction by the students in this particular context need to be enhanced in order to conform with conventional standards of academic writing. To meet this ambitious requirement, the study recommends explicit instruction, training, and showcasing these textual resources as they occur in high quality discipline-specific publications

Modulation of macrophage and epithelial cell immune defences by probiotic bacteria: immune stimulation versus suppression

Abstract Probiotic bacteria are live organisms, if consumed in adequate amounts might confer health benefits. These bacteria, such as Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), include a number of strains that have specific health promoting activi-ties, attributed to their immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory properties. Gut mucosal macrophage subsets play a fundamental role in driving muco-sal immune responses. These include, tolerance, associated with an M2-, regulatory macrophage phenotype and inflammatory activation with an M1-like phenotype. The cross-link between mucosal tolerance and inflammatory cytokine suppression, and augmentation of IL-10 production in the gut relate to endotoxin tolerance. Endotoxin tolerance is a context; it could present an example for cell drive through a hypo-responsive state. An example is mu-cosal inflammatory pathologies, such as Crohn’s disease. When tolerance is broken, causing the destruction of gut mucosal tissue. This is where the macrophage phenotype, has been transformed from a regulatory M2- to an inflammatory M1-like phenotype. This is seen as a reaction to both, patho-genic and commensal bacteria. This investigation was aimed at assessing the activities of live probiotic bacteria; Lactobacillus salivarius strain MS13 and Lactobacillus plantarum strain C28 in the immunomodulation of macro-phage subsets in health, inflammation, and endotoxin tolerance. M1- and M2-like macrophages were generated in vitro from the THP-1 monocyte cell line by differentiation with PMA and Vitamin D3, respectively. Additionally, differentiated epithelial cells (Caco-2) were obtained by long term culturing for 21 days. The role of Lactobacillus strains C28 and MS13 to modulate epi-thelial barrier integrity and macrophage-epithelial cell inflammation was in-vestigated. TNFα, IL-1β, IL-18, IL-23, IL-12, IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 were quanti-fied by ELISA and RT-PCR, whereas TLR-2, TLR-4, Tollip, SOCS3, STAT3 and TRAIL by RT-PCR. This study revealed that, first, live C28 and MS13 stimulated the proinflammatory cytokine by M2-like macrophages as well as the anti-inflammatory cytokine in a homeostatic status; whereas in an in-flammatory environment, C28 and MS13 differentially upregulated TNFα and IL-1β by M1 and M2-like macrophages induced by E.coli K12-LPS. Both strains downregulated K12-LPS induced IL-10 by M2-like macrophages. The response of stimulated M1 and M2 macrophages to C28 and MS13, was to differentially induce the gene expression of TLR-2, TLR-4, Tollip, NLRP3, SOCS-3, STAT3 and TRAIL. Second, the repeat-stimulation/tolerisation of M1 and M2 macrophages by live probiotic bacteria revealed, TNFα, IL-1β, IL-23, IL-18, IL-6 and IL-10 were upregulated in M1-like macrophages by C28, whereas MS13 upregulated TNFα, IL-1β, IL-18, and downregulated IL-12, IL-6, and IL-10. On the other hand, the tolerisation of M2-like macrophages by C28 and MS13 resulted in the downregulation of TNFα and IL-12p35 and upregulation of IL-1β, IL-18, IL-23, IL-12, IL-6, and IL-10. These findings were linked with the differential macrophage subset upregulation of TLR-4, NLRP3, STAT-3 and TRAIL gene expression. On the other hand, TLR-2, Tol-lip and SOCS-3 were downregulated in tolerised macrophage subsets by C28 and MS13. Furthermore, the role of lactobacilli strains C28 and MS13 in the modulation of endotoxin tolerance was to; upregulate TNF-α, IL-18, IL-23 and IL-10 by M1 and M2-like macrophages. This investigation also focused on the induction of the zona-occludin-1 (Zo-1), human β defensin-2 (hBD-2), and cytokine production IL-8 by Caco-2 cells. Trans epithelial electrical re-sistance (TEER) and RT-PCR measured the main cytokines studied pro-duced by Caco-2, were IL-8, also the epithelial barrier function. Live probiotic C28 and MS13 suppressed the production of IL-8 (in the presence or ab-sence TNFα and IL-1β). Moreover, in the co-culture of Caco-2 with macro-phage subsets, MS13 enhanced the expression of hBD-2 and ZO-1. These findings allow for the better understanding of live probiotic roles on macro-phage subsets functions and endotoxin tolerisation mechanisms, which may be beneficial for the development of in vivo models of probiotic bacteria and therapeutic targeting of inflammatory bowel disease.Iraqi Cultural attach

The Main Factors of Yemeni Conflict: An Analysis

Yemen is an unsteady country with a long history of conflict and many complex issues that have led to the deterioration of the political, economic, and social situation. The conflict in its various stages began as an internal political struggle as a result of the people's grievances and the elite's competition for power and national wealth, in addition to other external factors. Hence, it is important to study the conflict factors in Yemen to understand the situation which in turn will help in providing solutions by decision-makers towards peace-making. Therefore, this study analyses the conflict factors in Yemen based on the political, economic, and social effects, in addition to the external interference effects. The research findings indicated that the conflict factors were not the only result of security or political issues but also presented by many socio-economic problems as well as external factors, which have affected of the country since its unification

Organizational Aspects of Creating an Electronic System for the Formation of Foreign Language Skills

An analysis of the reports published by Education First indicates negative trends that have emerged in recent years in the education systems of developed countries. Attempts to use modern ICTs to accelerate the process of adult learning turn out to be untenable due to the lack of proper coordinated work of specialists in various fields. The article shows how it is possible to combine the most progressive approaches to the formation of production skills in adults and at the same time accelerate the process of learning a foreign language using the technological opportunities that have opened up in recent years. Only a systematic approach allows us to speak about the successful mastering of basic linguistic skills in the training of specialists, and both of these processes occur simultaneously. Cooperation of interested organizations within the framework of the new program is of particular importance ЕС “Horizon Europe”

Impact of Covid-19 Vaccine on Male Seminal Fluid Paramerters

This study was specifically designed to investigate the potential negative impact of COVID-19 vaccination on semen parameters (SFA) in a cohort of fertile men. Methods: 93 fertile vaccinated with2 doses of different covid19 vaccine (Pfizer, astrazenica, and sinopharm). The comparison of seminal fluid analysis parameters pre and post vaccination is the axis of study. Results: sperm concentration was statistically significant (main changes in Pfizer group). insignificant difference to other semen parameter. Conclusion: COVID-19 vaccine not impact semen fluid analysis parameters. So, most be not withheld men desiring fertility who meet criteria for vaccination

Comparison between Analytical Equation and Numerical Methods for Determining Shear Stress in a Cantilever Beam

A three meter-length cantilever beam loaded with a concentrated load at its free end is studied to determine shear stresses. In the present study, three cross sections are considered: rectangle (R); I, and T. The study presents a comparison of maximum shear stresses obtained by means of two methods: classical analytical equation derived by Collingnon, and finite element method (FEM) software. Software programs ANSYS and SAP2000 were used. The results show difference between the maximum shear stresses obtained by the analytical equation and the software, being the last is always higher. The average differences for ANSYS and SAP2000, independently of the cross section, were 12.76% and 11.96%, respectively. Considering these differences, correction factors were proposed to the classical analytical formula for each cross section case to obtain more realistic results. After the correction, the average differences decrease to 1.48% and 4.86%, regardless of the cross section shape