Analysing and visualising data sets of cybercrime investigations using structured occurrence nets

Ph. D. Thesis.Structured Occurrence Nets (SONs) are a Petri net based formalism for portraying the behaviour of complex evolving systems. As a concept, SONs are derived from Occurrence Nets (ONs). SONs provide a powerful framework for evolving system analysis and are supported by the existing SONCraft toolset. On the other hand, modelling of cybercrime investigations has become of interest in recent years, and large-scale criminal investigations have been considered as complex evolving systems. Right now, they present a significant challenge for police investigators and analysts. The current thesis contributes to addressing this challenge in two different ways: (i) by presenting an algorithm and an implemented tool that visualise data sets using maximal concurrency; and (ii) by detecting DNS tunnelling through a novel SON-based technique and tool. Moreover, the theoretical contribution of this thesis focuses on model extensions and abstraction; in particular, it introduces a new class of SONs based on multi-coloured tokens

Disability Policy and Wheelchair Users’ Accessibility in Jordan

The main purpose of this article was to evaluate wheelchair users’ access to public buildings in Jordan. The key assumption was that accessibility to public buildings in Jordan did not meet the needs of wheelchair users. Field observation method was applied using the accessibility checklist of Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) as a tool to collect data from a randomly selected sample of 30 buildings in Amman city. Quantitative analysis was used and results show that the average level of accessibility compliance of the surveyed buildings was too low (23%) to meet the needs of wheelchair users. The study concluded that little progress has actually been achieved in terms of environmental accessibility, which implies that Jordan’s disability policy was not successful in creating accessible environments in which wheelchair users’ equal rights of access to education, employment and basic services is guaranteed. The conclusion also sends a clear message to professionals and decision makers that despite the existence of disability legislation, wheelchair users are still facing physical and social barriers that prohibit their access to public buildings. In other words, law without recognition of the rights of people with disabilities tends to become ineffective

Energy Management and Smart Charging of PEVs in Isolated Microgrids

Microgrids are defined as a cluster of loads and micro-resources operating as a single controllable entity that provides both power and heat to its local area. Typically, these rely on conventional diesel generators, but with recent developments are expected to include more renewable energy sources (RESs), battery energy storage systems (BESSs), and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). Both RESs, such as wind and solar, and PEVs can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions significantly such as carbon dioxide (CO_2) which are released from burning fuel by generators or conventional vehicles. Energy management in isolated microgrids is an important task since these have limited generation capacity and are expected to rely on various uncontrollable resources to match and balance the demand-supply gap. Moreover, PEVs present a promising solution to GHG emissions but on the other hand, their increased penetration can impact power system operation, particularly so in isolated microgrids. Therefore, PEV load management is considered to be a crucial issue. Similarly, demand response (DR) has the potential to provide significant flexibility in operation of isolated microgrids with limited generation capacity, by altering the demand and introducing an elasticity effect. The present research work examines the impact of uncontrolled and controlled (smart) charging of PEVs using a comprehensive mathematical optimization model for short-term operation of the isolated microgrid. This model determines optimal energy management solutions combining generation from different resources such as diesel generators, wind turbines, solar panels, and BESSs, and incorporates the DR options as well. Furthermore, the thesis presents a stochastic optimization model after creating several probabilistic operational scenarios for energy management and smart charging of PEVs in short-term operation of the isolated microgrid considering fixed and optimal DR options. The proposed stochastic optimization model studies the impact of wind and solar generation output variability as well as the effect of uncertain energy consumption patterns of customers; and also the stochastic nature of the state of charge (SOC) of the PEV battery at the start of charging. Several case and scenario studies considering a modified CIGRE isolated microgrid benchmark test system, and using the proposed models are presented and evaluated, to obtain insights into the effect of smart charging vis-`a-vis uncoordinated charging accompanied by DR options in overall energy management of the isolated microgrid.4 month

A model on evaluating information security awareness in Majmaah University in Saudi Rabia

Evaluating the Information security awareness is consider one of the key and crucial elements of securing information system in organizations. It has been used widely in many fields such as in business, education, marketing, transportation, medical and many other fields. It plays a vital role and thus become challenging issue. Thus security managers should be ready installed and resistance to various numbers of potential attacks. The main reason to fail in many assessment information security awareness is the complexity and inflexibility of the existing models. Domain modulars usually spend many times to understand the nature of the domain, which they desire to model. Even though there are many existing method to evaluate ISA levels appears, but to find best suited way which could provide a straight guideline to ISA users based on their own problems are limited. To solve this limitation, this project follows several steps to create a generic model, which can determine the level of ISA, and its solutions through a unified model. This project addresses the issues of information security awareness towards employees and students in Majmaah University by implementing a conceptual model to support information security awareness for employees and students. The proposed model includes some factors such as; Information security awareness, Education, Bad Experience, Guidelines, Roles and responsibility, Behaviour, Knowledge and Attitude. The model is measured by conducting an online survey to collect data to support the proposed project which results these factors affect on Information Security Awareness by 263 employees and students. The proposed research has contributed to gain a better understanding of evaluating information security awareness to support the Majmaah University by using Cronbach’s alpha and regression in the analysis phase. The finding shows the level of information security awareness among students and staff of Majmaah University is moderately aware

A model on evaluating information security awareness in Majmaah University in Saudi Rabia

Evaluating the Information security awareness is consider one of the key and crucial elements of securing information system in organizations. It has been used widely in many fields such as in business, education, marketing, transportation, medical and many other fields. It plays a vital role and thus become challenging issue. Thus security managers should be ready installed and resistance to various numbers of potential attacks. The main reason to fail in many assessment information security awareness is the complexity and inflexibility of the existing models. Domain modulars usually spend many times to understand the nature of the domain, which they desire to model. Even though there are many existing method to evaluate ISA levels appears, but to find best suited way which could provide a straight guideline to ISA users based on their own problems are limited. To solve this limitation, this project follows several steps to create a generic model, which can determine the level of ISA, and its solutions through a unified model. This project addresses the issues of information security awareness towards employees and students in Majmaah University by implementing a conceptual model to support information security awareness for employees and students. The proposed model includes some factors such as; Information security awareness, Education, Bad Experience, Guidelines, Roles and responsibility, Behaviour, Knowledge and Attitude. The model is measured by conducting an online survey to collect data to support the proposed project which results these factors affect on Information Security Awareness by 263 employees and students. The proposed research has contributed to gain a better understanding of evaluating information security awareness to support the Majmaah University by using Cronbach’s alpha and regression in the analysis phase. The finding shows the level of information security awareness among students and staff of Majmaah University is moderately aware

Modeling Wind Speed Based on Fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Process

The primary task of the design and feasibility study for the use of wind power plants is to predict changes in wind speeds at the site of power system installation. The stochastic nature of the wind and spatio-temporal variability explains the high complexity of this problem, associated with finding the best mathematical modeling which satisfies the best solution for this problem. In the known discrete models based on Markov chains, the autoregressive-moving average does not allow variance in the time step, which does not allow their use for simulation of operating modes of wind turbines and wind energy systems. The article proposes and tests a SDE-based model for generating synthetic wind speed data using the stochastic differential equation of the fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with periodic function of long-run mean. The model allows generating wind speed trajectories with a given autocorrelation, required statistical distribution and provides the incorporation of daily and seasonal variations. Compared to the standard Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process driven by ordinary Brownian motion, the fractional model used in this study allows one to generate synthetic wind speed trajectories which autocorrelation function decays according to a power law that more closely matches the hourly autocorrelation of actual data. In order to demonstrate the capabilities of this model, a number of simulations were carried out using model parameters estimated from actual observation data of wind speed collected at 518 weather stations located throughout Russia

Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Program’s Residents in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) focuses on stimulating the body’s ability to heal itself through energy alignment, herbal supplementation, and other balancing techniques. AIM: The objective of the study was to investigate and compare the Knowledge Attitude Practice (KAP) of CAM among program’s residents in Tabuk region. METHODS: A cross-sectional CAP study was conducted among program’s residents in Tabuk region. All program’s residents of all specialties in Tabuk region were included in the study. Data were collected by predesigned electronic questionnaire covering the needed items. Collected data were coded and analyzed using SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA. The Chi-square test was used as a test of significance and p = 0.05 or less was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Most (95.8%) of the participants have heard about CAM, 25% have used CAM in treatment before, and 72.3% of them reported beneficial outcome, 25.7% strongly agree and 48.6% agree that CAM is a useful complement to pharmacological medicine, 38.2% believed that the results of CAM are usually due to the placebo effect, and 52.1% recommended using CAM. On the other hand, 79.9% have knowledge about acupuncture, 54.9% spiritual healing and herbal medicine, 43.1% massage, 41% yoga, 70.8% bloodletting cupping, and 56.3% about cauterization. More than third (38.2%) of the participants agreed that the use of herbal products is a valid form of drugs which can be used for the treatment of variety of diseases, 48.6% agreed that CAM is a useful complement to pharmacological medicine, while 36.1% strongly agreed that CAM treatments are not tested in a scientifically recognized manner. CONCLUSION: In our study, the majority of program’s residents in Tabuk region agree that CAM is a useful complement to pharmacological medicine and recommended using CAM while reasonable percentage of them believed that the results of CAM are usually due to the placebo effect

Enhancement of Solar PV Hosting Capacity in a Remote Industrial Microgrid: A Methodical Techno-Economic Approach

To meet the zero-carbon electricity generation target as part of the sustainable development goals (SDG7), remote industrial microgrids worldwide are considering the uptake of more and more renewable energy resources, especially solar PV systems. Estimating the grid PV hosting capacity plays an essential role in designing and planning such microgrids. PV hosting capacity assessment determines the maximum PV capacity suitable for the grid and the appropriate electrical location for PV placement. This research reveals that conventional static criteria to assess the PV hosting capacity fail to ensure the grid’s operational robustness. It hence demands a reduction in the theoretical hosting capacity estimation to ensure grid compatible post-fault voltage and frequency recovery. Energy storage technologies, particularly fast-responsive batteries, can potentially prevent such undesirable scenarios; nevertheless, careful integration is required to ensure an affordable cost of energy. This study proposes a novel methodical techno-economic approach for an off-grid remote industrial microgrid to enhance the PV hosting capacity by integrating battery energy storage considering grid disturbance and recovery scenarios. The method has been validated in an industrial microgrid with a 2.6 MW peak demand in a ready-made garment (RMG) factory having a distinctive demand pattern and unique constraints in remote Bangladesh. According to the analysis, integrating 2.5 MW of PV capacity and a 1.2 MVA battery bank to offset existing diesel and grid consumption would result in an energy cost of BDT 14.60 per kWh (USD 0.1719 per kWh). For high PV penetration scenarios, the application of this method offers higher system robustness, and the financial analysis indicates that the industries would not only benefit from positive environmental impact but also make an economic profit