Evelyne Lutton, Nathalie Perrot, Alberto Tonda: Evolutionary algorithms for food science and technology, Wiley, 2016, 182 pp, ISBN: 978-1-119-13683-5 [Book review]

A review of the book: Evolutionary algorithms for food science and technology, by Evelyne Lutton, Nathalie Perrot, Alberto Tond

Towards security monitoring patterns

Runtime monitoring is performed during system execution to detect whether the system’s behaviour deviates from that described by requirements. To support this activity we have developed a monitoring framework that expresses the requirements to be monitored in event calculus – a formal temporal first order language. Following an investigation of how this framework could be used to monitor security requirements, in this paper we propose patterns for expressing three basic types of such requirements, namely confidentiality, integrity and availability. These patterns aim to ease the task of specifying confidentiality, integrity and availability requirements in monitorable forms by non-expert users. The paper illustrates the use of these patterns using examples of an industrial case study

Online-Gemeinschaften und Sprachvariation : soziolinguistische Perspektiven auf Sprache im Internet

This paper presents a sociolinguistic perspective on language in the Internet. Most linguistic research on computer mediated communication has focused on media or genre related language variation, establishing language styles as typical for e.g. chat or newsgroups. A critical discussion of this research suggests that more attention should be paid to user related language variation. The concept of "online community" is proposed as a suitable starting point for the study of language variation on the Internet, and sociological and linguistic criteria for the definition and description of online communities are discussed. The second part of the paper presents a classification of sociolinguistically relevant variation patterns. Finally, evidence for the effect of various social factors on language use in the Internet is reviewed

Amorphous slicing of extended finite state machines

Slicing is useful for many Software Engineering applications and has been widely studied for three decades, but there has been comparatively little work on slicing Extended Finite State Machines (EFSMs). This paper introduces a set of dependency based EFSM slicing algorithms and an accompanying tool. We demonstrate that our algorithms are suitable for dependence based slicing. We use our tool to conduct experiments on ten EFSMs, including benchmarks and industrial EFSMs. Ours is the first empirical study of dependence based program slicing for EFSMs. Compared to the only previously published dependence based algorithm, our average slice is smaller 40% of the time and larger only 10% of the time, with an average slice size of 35% for termination insensitive slicing

Control dependence for extended finite state machines.

Though there has been nearly three decades of work on program slicing, there has been comparatively little work on slicing for state machines. One of the primary challenges that currently presents a barrier to wider application of state machine slicing is the problem of determining control dependence. We survey existing related denitions, introducing a new denition that subsumes one and extends another. We illustrate that by using this new denition our slices respect Weiser slicing's termination behaviour. We prove results that clarify the relationships between our denition and older ones, following this up with examples to motivate the need for these dierences

A theoretical and empirical study of EFSM dependence.

Dependence analysis underpins many activities in software maintenance such as comprehension and impact analysis. As a result, dependence has been studied widely for programming languages, notably through work on program slicing. However, there is comparatively little work on dependence analysis at the model level and hitherto, no empirical studies. We introduce a slicing tool for extended finite state machines (EFSMs) and use the tool to gather empirical results on several forms of dependence found in ten EFSMs, including well-known benchmarks in addition to real-world EFSM models. We investigate the statistical properties of dependence using statistical tests for correlation and formalize and prove four of the empirical findings arising from our empirical study. The paper thus provides the maintainer with both empirical data and foundational theoretical results concerning dependence in EFSM models

Optimizing investments in cyber hygiene for protecting healthcare users

Cyber hygiene measures are often recommended for strengthening an organization’s security posture, especially for protecting against social engineering attacks that target the human element. However, the related recommendations are typically the same for all organizations and their employees, regardless of the nature and the level of risk for different groups of users. Building upon an existing cybersecurity investment model, this paper presents a tool for optimal selection of cyber hygiene safeguards, which we refer as the Optimal Safeguards Tool (OST). The model combines game theory and combinatorial optimization (0-1 Knapsack) taking into account the probability of each user group to being attacked, the value of assets accessible by each group, and the efficacy of each control for a particular group. The model considers indirect cost as the time employees could require for learning and trainning against an implemented control. Utilizing a game-theoretic framework to support the Knapsack optimization problem permits us to optimally select safeguards’ application levels minimizing the aggregated expected damage within a security investment budget. We evaluate OST in a healthcare domain use case. In particular, on the Critical Internet Security (CIS) Control group 17 for implementing security awareness and training programs for employees belonging to the ICT, clinical and administration personnel of a hospital. We compare the strategies implemented by OST against alternative common-sense defending approaches for three different types of attackers: Nash, Weighted and Opportunistic. Our results show that Nash defending strategies are consistently better than the competing strategies for all attacker types with a minor exception where the Nash defending strategy, for a specific game, performs at least as good as other common-sense approaches. Finally, we illustrate the alternative investment strategies on different Nash equilibria (called plans) and discuss the optimal choice using the framework of 0-1 Knapsack optimization

Nobiletin bioactivation in MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells by cytochrome P450 CYP1 enzymes.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI linkNobiletin is a fully methoxylated flavone that has demonstrated anticancer activity via multiple modes of action. In the present study, the metabolism and further antiproliferative activity of nobiletin was evaluated in the CYP1 expressing human breast cancer cell line MDA–MB–468 and the normal breast cell line MCF10A. Nobiletin was metabolized in MDA–MB–468 cells to a single-demethylated derivative assigned NP1. This metabolite was absent in MCF10A cells that did not express CYP1 enzymes. Nobiletin exhibited submicromolar IC50 (0.1±0.04 μM) in MDA–MB–468 cells, whereas it was considerably less active in MCF10A cells (40 μM). In the presence of the CYP1 inhibitor acacetin, the conversion of nobiletin to NP1 was significantly reduced in MDA–MB–468 cells. Furthermore, a significant increase was noted in the population of the cells at the G1 phase, following treatment with nobiletin (10 μM) for 24 h compared with the control cells treated with DMSO (0.1%) alone (55.9±0.14 vs. 45.6±1.96), whereas the cell cycle of MCF10A cells was not significantly altered under the same treatment conditions. Taken collectively, the results suggest that nobiletin is selectively bioactivated in MDA–MB–468 breast cancer cells via metabolism by the CYP1 family of enzymes

Autochthonous heritage languages and social media:writing and bilingual practices in Low German on Facebook

This article analyses how speakers of an autochthonous heritage language (AHL) make use of digital media, through the example of Low German, a regional language used by a decreasing number of speakers mainly in northern Germany. The focus of the analysis is on Web 2.0 and its interactive potential for individual speakers. The study therefore examines linguistic practices on the social network site Facebook, with special emphasis on language choice, bilingual practices and writing in the autochthonous heritage language. The findings suggest that social network sites such as Facebook have the potential to provide new mediatized spaces for speakers of an AHL that can instigate sociolinguistic change