How Can and Would People Protect From Online Tracking?

Online tracking is complex and users find itchallenging to protect themselves from it. While the aca-demic community has extensively studied systems andusers for tracking practices, the link between the dataprotection regulations, websites’ practices of presentingprivacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), and how userslearn about PETs and practice them is not clear. Thispaper takes a multidimensional approach to find such alink. We conduct a study to evaluate the 100 top EUwebsites, where we find that information about PETsis provided far beyond the cookie notice. We also findthat opting-out from privacy settings is not as easy asopting-in and becomes even more difficult (if not impos-sible) when the user decides to opt-out of previously ac-cepted privacy settings. In addition, we conduct an on-line survey with 614 participants across three countries(UK, France, Germany) to gain a broad understand-ing of users’ tracking protection practices. We find thatusers mostly learn about PETs for tracking protectionvia their own research or with the help of family andfriends. We find a disparity between what websites offeras tracking protection and the ways individuals reportto do so. Observing such a disparity sheds light on whycurrent policies and practices are ineffective in support-ing the use of PETs by users

Assembling of Fluid Filtration System for Quantitative Evaluation of Microleakage in Dental Materials

INTRODUCTION: There are several methods for evaluating microleakage in dentistry, for example dye or bacterial leakage, electro-chemical methods, radioisotope labeling and fluid filtration. The purpose of this study was to assemble the fluid filtration system for quantitative evaluation of microleakage in dental materials. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The roots were connected to a tube filled with an underwater pressure supply. A bubble was introduced into the water to measure endodontic leakage. A digital camera and professional software were utilized to record and measure the bubble displacement. RESULTS: Our system was constructed successfully and functioned correctly. CONCLUSION: In this pilot study we found this system efficient for the evaluation of microleakage of dental materials

A Practical Deep Learning-Based Acoustic Side Channel Attack on Keyboards

With recent developments in deep learning, the ubiquity of micro-phones and the rise in online services via personal devices, acoustic side channel attacks present a greater threat to keyboards than ever. This paper presents a practical implementation of a state-of-the-art deep learning model in order to classify laptop keystrokes, using a smartphone integrated microphone. When trained on keystrokes recorded by a nearby phone, the classifier achieved an accuracy of 95%, the highest accuracy seen without the use of a language model. When trained on keystrokes recorded using the video-conferencing software Zoom, an accuracy of 93% was achieved, a new best for the medium. Our results prove the practicality of these side channel attacks via off-the-shelf equipment and algorithms. We discuss a series of mitigation methods to protect users against these series of attacks.Comment: This paper was already accepted in 2023 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshop, SiLM'23 (EuroS&PW

Predicting Candidate Epitopes on Ebola Virus for Possible Vaccine Development

Zaire ebolavirus, a member of family Filoviridae is the cause of hemorrhagic fever. Due to lack of appropriate antiviral or vaccine, this disease is very lethal. In this study, we tried to find epitopes for superficial glycoprotein and nucleoprotein of Zaire ebolavirus (that have high antigenicity for MHC I, II and B cells) by using in silico methods and immunoinformatics approach. By using CTLPred, SYFPEITHI and ProPred web applications for MHC class I and SYFPEITHI and ProPred1 web applications for MHC class II, we had been able to find epitopes (peptides) that have the highest score. Also ElliPro, IgPred and DiscoTope web tools had been performed to predict B cells conformational epitopes. Linear epitope prediction for B cell was performed with six methods from IEDB. All of the results that including candidate epitopes for T cells and B cells were reported. It was expected that these peptides could be stimulated immune response and used for designing the multipeptide vaccine against ZEV but these results should be reliable with experimental analysis

STUDYING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISCRETIONARY ACCRUALS AND SOME OF THE PERFORMANCE INDICATORS OF COMPANIES LISTED IN TEHRAN STOCK EXCHANGE

The fact of importance of measuring performance is recognized for organizations and it plays an important role in many organizations. Today, as we are in the information age, accounting profit is part of the information used by investors in risk assessment and returns on an accrual basis. The corporate performance evaluation is one of the most important issues for investors in terms of investment decision. The purpose of this study was to study the relationship between the voluntary accruals level and the performance indicators of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. For this purpose, some performance indicators such as cash flow, return on assets, return on equity, price-to-profit ratio, and return on investment were measured. The research sample consisted of 102 Iranian stock exchanges during the years 2010-2014. The results of the research show that there is a significant relationship between discretionary accruals and operating cash flow and equity returns, and the market pricing of accruals is not affected by the external financing levels.  Article visualizations

Allelopathic potential of Anagalis arvensis L.

Anagalis arvensis L. (Primulaceae) is a common cultivating weed, forming dense populations of undergrowth in warm and temperate regions of Pakistan. Allelopathic studies with aqueous extracts from whole plant including leaves, flowers, shoot and roots; litter and mulch in various experiments invariably reduced the germination, plumule growth, radical growth, number of seminal roots, cell size, and fresh and dry weights of two wheat varieties namely, Ghaznavi and Uqab, which were used as the test species. Phytotoxicity of extracts depended on the amount and soaking duration. Generally, the extracts obtained after 48 h soaking and the hot water extracts were more inhibitory. Addition of litter and mulch also proved inhibitory in the experiments. Our work suggested that A. arvensis had strong allelopathic potential but must further be tested for its weedicidal and insecticidal activities. From the practical view point, the identification of weeds with potential pool of allelochemicals, screening and identification of the toxic principle, assessment of their adverse effects on germination of crops during early growth stages and finally on the commercial yield is highly recommended.Keywords: Anagalis arvensis L. (Primulaceae), allelopathic, extracts, wee

Bad government as a reason of recent financial crisis in Europe

In spite of emphasizing on a market by economic liberalism, most experts believe that market failure caused the deepest global crisis after Great Depression (1929) to happen. Although we cannot ignore the importance to the role of attendance of government to the economy, we believe that sometimes governments are the reason behind the problems in economic situation. Factors like the lack of political integration between European governments and cooperation of national government, the absence of mighty government to make decision and policy and undisciplined financial plans, as well as, loss of proper rules and low, which are occasions of bad government.peer-reviewe