On the Optimality of Virtualized Security Function Placement in Multi-Tenant Data Centers

Security and service protection against cyber attacks remain among the primary challenges for virtualized, multi-tenant Data Centres (DCs), for reasons that vary from lack of resource isolation to the monolithic nature of legacy middleboxes. Although security is currently considered a property of the underlying infrastructure, diverse services require protection against different threats and at timescales which are on par with those of service deployment and elastic resource provisioning. We address the resource allocation problem of deploying customised security services over a virtualized, multi-tenant DC. We formulate the problem in Integral Linear Programming (ILP) as an instance of the NP-hard variable size variable cost bin packing problem with the objective of maximising the residual resources after allocation. We propose a modified version of the Best Fit Decreasing algorithm (BFD) to solve the problem in polynomial time and we show that BFD optimises the objective function up to 80% more than other algorithms

Virtual Black Holes from Generalized Uncertainty Principle and Proton Decay

We investigate the formation of virtual black holes in the context of generalized uncertainty principle (GUP), as a mediator for a proton decay process which is forbidden by the standard model. Then, we calculate the lower bounds of the GUP deformation parameter by the experimental bound on the half life of the proton.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure. Minor typos corrected. Published in EP

On the placement of security-related Virtualised Network Functions over data center networks

Middleboxes are typically hardware-accelerated appliances such as firewalls, proxies, WAN optimizers, and NATs that play an important role in service provisioning over today's data centers. Reports show that the number of middleboxes is on par with the number of routers, and consequently represent a significant commitment from an operator's capital and operational expenditure budgets. Over the past few years, software middleboxes known as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) are replacing the hardware appliances to reduce cost, improve the flexibility of deployment, and allow for extending network functionality in short timescales. This dissertation aims at identifying the unique characteristics of security modules implementation as VNFs in virtualised environments. We focus on the placement of the security VNFs to minimise resource usage without violating the security imposed constraints as a challenge faced by operators today who want to increase the usable capacity of their infrastructures. The work presented here, focuses on the multi-tenant environment where customised security services are provided to tenants. The services are implemented as a software module deployed as a VNF collocated with network switches to reduce overhead. Furthermore, the thesis presents a formalisation for the resource-aware placement of security VNFs and provides a constraint programming solution along with examining heuristic, meta-heuristic and near-optimal/subset-sum solutions to solve larger size problems in reduced time. The results of this work identify the unique and vital constraints of the placement of security functions. They demonstrate that the granularity of the traffic required by the security functions imposes traffic constraints that increase the resource overhead of the deployment. The work identifies the north-south traffic in data centers as the traffic designed for processing for security functions rather than east-west traffic. It asserts that the non-sharing strategy of security modules will reduce the complexity in case of the multi-tenant environment. Furthermore, the work adopts on-path deployment of security VNF traffic strategy, which is shown to reduce resources overhead compared to previous approaches

The Role of Social Capital (Tribe or Civil Society Organizations) in Achieving Sustainable Development in the City of Amman

This study dealt with the concept of social capital, through a network of social relations and the role played to achieve economic and political needs of the study Examples of aspects of social capital, such as clans and civil society organizations, were presented, and how sustainable development can be achieved through activating the role of social capital in Amman. The researcher followed the descriptive and analytical approach in reviewing and analyzing a set of previous studies based on Bourdieu and Putnam's description of social capital. The results of the study were summarized in the importance of activating the role of social capital in achieving sustainable development by relying on its various manifestations in the city of Amman, whether the clan or civil society organizations, because of their negatives and positives for the Jordanian society, and dealing with the components of society with respect for its privacy to achieve better results for sustainable development. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-28-05 Publication date:October 31st 2020

Saad Elkhadem's The Plague in English: A Study of the Translation Strategies used to Recreate the Egyptian Ethos

This thesis focuses on translation as a transcultural activity. It studies the foreignizing and domesticating translation strategies used to recreate the Egyptian ethos in the translation of Elkhadems The Plague from Arabic to English. Five theories are incorporated in the analysis. These are Venutis Domesticating and Foreignizing Theory; Tourys DTS; Genettes Paratexts; Pedersens taxonomy of strategies for rendering culture-bound references and his classification of culture-bound elements; and Vermeers Skopos Theory. Three types of analysis are conducted: a literary analysis of the source text; a microanalysis of the target text, further divided into an analysis of the novel's paratexts and a descriptive analysis of ninety-eight culture-bound references; and finally, a macro-analysis of the overall norms and of the skopos of the translation showing how both affect the transmission of the Egyptian ethos. Overall, this thesis provides some insight into the influence of translation on cultural identity

Microbial Quality of Paddy fields at Alfurat Alawsat Area, Iraq and the Effect of Milling Process on the Rice Contamination Level

شملت الدراسة تحليل اربعة وخمسون عينة شلب، خمسة واربعون عينة تربة، وتسع عينات مياه ري اخذت من منطقة الفرات الاوسط/ العراق. حللت من الناحية المايكروبية وشملت تحليل العدد البكتيري الكلي، عدد الخمائر والاعفان، عدد بكتريا القولون، وعدد بكتريا E. coli. تم تصنيع عينات الشلب على مستوى مختبري لانتاج رز ذا درجة بياض 32 و 36 وتم تحديد المحتوى المايكروبي للرز المصنع. اظهرت النتائج ان كل عينات مياه الري تجاوزت الحد المسموح به لمنظمة الغذاء والدواء الامريكية (FDA)  لبكتريا E. coli  وان كل عينات الشلب تجاوزت الحد الجيد للعدد الكلي للبكتيريا بينما لم تتجاوت اي عينة الحد المسموح به للعدد الكلي للبكتريا. معظم عينات الشلب تجاوزت العدد المسموح به للخمائر والاعفان وعدد قليل من النماذج تجاوزت العدد الكلي لبكتريا القلولون. قللت العملية التصيعية للشلب الحمل المايكوبي لبعض عينات الشلب بينما التاثير لم يكن واضحا مع عينات اخرى وزداد المحتوى المايكروبي لعينات اخرى بعد العملية التصنيعية. عشر عينات رز على درجة بياض 32 وثمان عينات رز على درجة بياض 36 من اصل 13 عينة تجاوت الحد المسموح به للخمائر والاعفان بالنسبة لمواصفة الغذاء والدواء الامريكية والمواصفة القياسية العراقية. كل عينات الرز المصنة تجاوت الحد المسموح به لبكتريا القولون بالنسبة للمواصفة القياسية العراقية بينما فقط ستة عينات وثلاث عينات من اصل 13 عينة تجاوز الحد المسموح به لذات البكتريا بالنسبة لمواصفة منظمة الغذاء والدواء الامريكية لرز على درجة بياض 32 و36 على التوالي. نستنتج من الدراسة ان عينات الشلب الماخوذة من حقول الشلب في منطقة الفرات الاوسط تجاوزت بعض الحدود المايركروبية من الحقل دون تاثير للعملية التصنيعية او الخزن عليها وان مياه الري اعتبرت المصدر الرئيسي لتلوث الحقول لذلك يجب مراقبة حقول الشلب للسيطرة على التلوث المايكروبي.  Fifty-Four paddy samples, 45 soil samples, and nine irrigation water samples of some paddy fields at Alfurat Alawsat Area, Iraq were collected to investigate the microbial quality including total count bacteria (TCB), molds and yeast, total coliform (TC), and E. coli bacteria. Paddy samples were processed at the laboratory level to produce rice at 32 and 36 whiteness, and the microbial quality of the produced rice was conducted too. The results showed that all irrigation water samples were overpassed the FDA limit for E. coli. All paddy samples were exceeded the good limit of TCB, but no sample exceeded the acceptable limit. Most paddy samples were exceeded the FDA limit for molds and yeast, and few paddy samples exceeded the total coliform limit. The milling process reduced microbial levels for some samples, while the effect was undetectable for other samples. Ten rice samples at 32 whiteness and eight rice samples at 36 whiteness out of 13 paddy samples overpassed FDA and Iraqi Quality Standardization (IQS) for molds and yeast. All produced rice at both whiteness levels was exceeded the total coliform of IQS, while only six and three samples out of 13 rice samples at 32 and 36 whiteness respectively overpassed the FDA limit. In conclusion, paddy samples taken from Alfurat Alawsat fields were overpassed some microbial levels from fields without the effect of storage or milling processing. Irrigation water was probably the main source of fields’ contamination, therefore, the paddy fields need to be monitored and controlled in terms of their microbial contamination

Reactions with hydrazonoyl halides 66: Synthesis of some new 1,3,4-thiadiazoles, triazolino[4,3-a]pyrimidines and isoxazolo[3,4-d]pyridazines containing coumarin moiety

2,3-Dihydro-1,3,4-thiadiazoles, triazolino[4,3-a]pyrimidines, isoxazoles and isoxazolo[3,4-d]pyridazines containing coumarin moities were synthesized from the reactions of methyl (or benzyl) carbodithioate, pyrimidine-2-thione and 3-(3-(dimethylamino)acryloyl)-2H-chromen-2-one derivatives with C-coumarinoyl-N-phenylhydrazonoyl bromide. The structures of all the newly synthesized compounds were confirmed by elemental analyses and spectral data

In-Network Placement of Security VNFs in Multi-Tenant Data Centers

Middleboxes are typically hardware-accelerated appliances such as firewalls, Proxies, WAN optimizers, and NATs that play an important role in service provisioning over today’s Data Centers. We focus on the placement of virtualised security services in multi-tenant Data Centers. Customised security services are provided to tenants as software VNF modules collocated with switches in the network. Our placement formulation satisfies the allocation constraints while maintaining efficient management of the infrastructure resources. We propose a Constraint Programming (CP) formulation and a CPLEX implementation. We also formulate a heuristic-based algorithm to solve larger instances of the placement problem. Extensive evaluation of the algorithms has been conducted, demonstrating that the VNF approach provides more than 50% reduction in resource consumption compared to other heuristic algorithms

Evaluate the Efficiency of Gamma Irradiation and Chitosan on Shelf-Life of Strawberries Fruits

Chitosan play an important role as an antifungal against Botrytis cinerea and the effect was a concentration dependent. The obtained results of in vitro experiment demonstrated that chitosan (4%) decreased radial growth of B. cinereato 2 %. Invivo the severity of infection reduced from 59.8 and 100.0 to 9.7, 33.8 and 40.1 in first, second and third week's storage periods at 13C, respectively. Also, chitosan coating (4%) significantly caused an increase in fruit firmness whereas TSS was decreased with an increase by increasing in storage time. However,Vitamin C gave fluctuated results by increasing storage time. Gamma irradiation at 2.5 KGy reduced severity (%) of infected fruits from 55.5, 100 and 100 to 31.7, 45.9 and 49.9 and in healthy fruits severity (%) reduced from 48.9, 100 and 100 to 23.3, 25.1 and 29.1 in different storage periods 1, 2 and 3 weeks, respectively. Similarly, chitosan as well as gamma irradiation combination induced a significant increase of peroxidase enzyme (POD) activity. Induced changes in surface morphology and damage of cell structure caused by using chitosan shown by scanning electron microscopy. Also, gamma irradiation causes changes in hyphea structure and in surface morphology but combination of gamma irradiation with chitosan was more effective in altering fungus morphology and cell structure damage and no spore forming. This providing the efficiency of combination on reducing disease severity (%) of strawberry

Bone Mineral Density, Body Composition and Dietary Intake in Asian Indian and Caucasian Males

Background: The difference in osteoporotic fractures across different ethnic groups could be due to the differences in body composition and eating habits. The variation in areal bone mineral density (aBMD), body composition and dietary intake between immigrant Asian Indians and Caucasians are unknown. Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the differences in aBMD, body composition and dietary intake between immigrant Asian Indians and Caucasians matched for age and body mass index (BMI). Also, we examined the relationship between body composition and aBMD and how might the relationships differ between the two groups. Design: A convenient sample of 32 healthy males who self-identified themselves as either Asian Indians (n=16) or Caucasians (n=16) were recruited for this cross-sectional study. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was used for measuring aBMD and bone mineral content (BMC) at the lumbar spine, femoral neck, 33% radius of the non-dominant hand and whole body. Body composition was measured using whole body scan by DXA. Dietary intake was assessed using 24-hour food recall and food frequency questionnaires. Results: There was no difference between groups in age and BMI. Lean mass was lower in Asian Indians compared Caucasians (p=0.03). aBMD at measured sites were similar between two groups (all p>0.05). However, BMC was lower at all skeletal sites (all p0.05). There were no differences in the correlation between body composition with aBMD between Asian Indians and Caucasians. Regarding dietary intake, calcium and magnesium intakes were not different between the two ethnic groups (all p<0.05). Conclusion: Asian Indian men have lower lean mass and BMC at different skeletal sites, but similar other body composition variables and dietary intakes compared to age and BMI matched Caucasians. Lean mass showed a positive correlation with aBMD. Since the scope of this study was limited to examine the difference in bone density using aBMD, the study highlights the need for further research to examine the variability in bone turnover between immigrant Asian Indians and Caucasians to see if the findings from biochemical properties and bone density are similar.M.S., Nutrition Sciences -- Drexel University, 201