Mining Threat Intelligence about Open-Source Projects and Libraries from Code Repository Issues and Bug Reports

Open-Source Projects and Libraries are being used in software development while also bearing multiple security vulnerabilities. This use of third party ecosystem creates a new kind of attack surface for a product in development. An intelligent attacker can attack a product by exploiting one of the vulnerabilities present in linked projects and libraries. In this paper, we mine threat intelligence about open source projects and libraries from bugs and issues reported on public code repositories. We also track library and project dependencies for installed software on a client machine. We represent and store this threat intelligence, along with the software dependencies in a security knowledge graph. Security analysts and developers can then query and receive alerts from the knowledge graph if any threat intelligence is found about linked libraries and projects, utilized in their products

Applications of halloysite nanocontainers for functional protective coating

In this study we have explored the applications of halloysite clay nanotubes as a nanocontainer. Halloysite nanotubes are used as a storage unit for anticorrosion agents, flame retardants, and a dopant to extend the curing time for geopolymer composites. Halloysite is a naturally occurring clay mineral with a chemical formula of Al2Si2O 5(OH)4 · 2 H2O and is identical to kaolinite with the exception that it holds an additional water monolayer in its interlayered spaces. Upon heating at higher temperatures, halloysite loses the additional water monolayer, and this variant known colloquially as meta-halloysite has a chemical formula of Al2Si2O5(OH) 4 [1][3]. This study has been divided into five sections. The first section explores the implementation of acid etching for interlayered alumina to increase the loading efficiency of the halloysite. Halloysite is mixed with the sulfuric acid at 0.5 M, I M and 2 M concentrations at varying temperature. It is observed that the alumina that composes the halloysite is degraded faster at temperatures above room temperature and at higher concentrations of sulfuric acid. The second section addresses the application of halloysite as a nanocontainer for the anticorrosion agents for the protection of ASTM A366 steel plates. Halloysite nanotubes are loaded with different types of anticorrosion agents, and are then admixed with an acrylic paint. Samples are exposed to a saline environment for one month. Compared to the controlled samples, halloysite loaded with corrosion inhibitors are found to enhance self-healing. This makes halloysite nanotubes a strong candidate for self-healing composites. In the third section, controlled release of dodecylamine from halloysite nanotubes is used in the implementation of metal-organic and polymeric stoppers. Different types of metal stoppers and polymeric stoppers are analyzed and release studies for dodecylamine are performed in water and paint thinner. In the fourth section, halloysite is explored as a flame retardant. Halloysite nanotubes are mixed with latex paint in concentrations of 5 wt% and 7 wt%, and the samples are tested for flame retardancy by exposing them to a flame torch following the ASTM E84 standard. Simultaneously, paint is mixed with a commercial flame retardant additive and the results are compared pre and post-flame exposure for both samples, with and without halloysite mixed paint. In the final section, halloysite nanotubes used to extend the curing time of geopolymer samples can be achieved for the fly ash samples with a higher calcium content. High calcium content fly ash samples set faster than normal fly ashes. Halloysite coating increases the curing time, therefore giving ample time for the cement sample to flow and set in any desired shape. Utilizing the Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technique, fly ash particles are coated with halloysite, and the curing time is analyzed using Theological testing at room temperature and at 100° C. The coating of halloysite on the fly ash particles is characterized with SEM and Zeta-potential resulting in an optimized shell coating on the fly ash. An extension of curing time from 2 to 8 hrs is reached which is patented (pending) as an important technological development in this new constructional material

A Study of Talent Management as a Strategic Tool for the Organization in Selected Indian IT Companies

Over the past decade there has been a glut of management literature around the topic of talent management.  The challenge of effective talent management to support business growth has been consistently identified as a top priority among global CEOs. While the phrase "Talent Management" is relatively new as a concept, however as a management focus it has always been at the core of strategic HRM. Strategic   HRM   performs   an   enabling   and   investment    management role   for organizations. The HR leader as champion for organizational hurl\an resource management excellence is tasked with the primary responsibility of leading and strategizing comprehensive efforts to attract, develop, engage and retain a workforce that is competent to support strategy and strategic management efforts. Talent management systems and processes need to be integrated into the total HRM system of the  organization. Traditional roles of  HRM such as recruitment,  training, performance  management  and  compensation  need  to  be  aligned  to  support  the achievement   of   talent   management  goals  such  as  talent   turnover,   employee engagement, succession pipeline ratios, etc. This article addresses how recruitment and selection, a traditional function of HRM needs to be managed in an organizational context that has a focus on talent management. Expressed from a strategic business perspective, "Talent management may be defined as a core sub-system of an organization's strategic management system, to develop a human resource asset base that is capable to support current and future organizational growth directions and objectives".Talent management may be described as comprising three key components:-Talent IdentificationTalent Development -Internal and external talent developmentTalent Engagement, motivation and retentionKeywords: Key words, Infosys, Tech Mahindra

FABULA: Intelligence Report Generation Using Retrieval-Augmented Narrative Construction

Narrative construction is the process of representing disparate event information into a logical plot structure that models an end to end story. Intelligence analysis is an example of a domain that can benefit tremendously from narrative construction techniques, particularly in aiding analysts during the largely manual and costly process of synthesizing event information into comprehensive intelligence reports. Manual intelligence report generation is often prone to challenges such as integrating dynamic event information, writing fine-grained queries, and closing information gaps. This motivates the development of a system that retrieves and represents critical aspects of events in a form that aids in automatic generation of intelligence reports. We introduce a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) approach to augment prompting of an autoregressive decoder by retrieving structured information asserted in a knowledge graph to generate targeted information based on a narrative plot model. We apply our approach to the problem of neural intelligence report generation and introduce FABULA, framework to augment intelligence analysis workflows using RAG. An analyst can use FABULA to query an Event Plot Graph (EPG) to retrieve relevant event plot points, which can be used to augment prompting of a Large Language Model (LLM) during intelligence report generation. Our evaluation studies show that the plot points included in the generated intelligence reports have high semantic relevance, high coherency, and low data redundancy