Multimodal Data Fusion and Behavioral Analysis Tooling for Exploring Trust, Trust-propensity, and Phishing Victimization in Online Environments

Online environments, including email and social media platforms, are continuously threatened by malicious content designed by attackers to install malware on unsuspecting users and/or phish them into revealing sensitive data about themselves. Often slipping past technical mitigations (e.g. spam filters), attacks target the human element and seek to elicit trust as a means of achieving their nefarious ends. Victimized end-users lack the discernment, visual acuity, training, and/or experience to correctly identify the nefarious antecedents of trust that should prompt suspicion. Existing literature has explored trust, trust-propensity, and victimization, but studies lack data capture richness, realism, and/or the ability to investigate active user interactions. This paper defines a data collection and fusion approach alongside new open-sourced behavioral analysis tooling that addresses all three factors to provide researchers with empirical, evidence-based, insights into active end-user trust behaviors. The approach is evaluated in terms of comparative analysis, run-time performance, and fused data accuracy

Information management in cow-calf operations: data priorities, recording, and sharing

Master of ScienceDepartment of Agricultural EconomicsTed C SchroederAnimal information management presents a major challenge in the beef cattle industry. How data is gathered, recorded, utilized, and shared are constrained by time, cost, and technology. Effective information collection and administration provides a valuable tool for producers to facilitate efficient cattle management. The transfer of detailed production and health information from cow-calf to downstream producers enables tailoring production decisions, reducing redundant animal health interventions, and facilitating cattle and beef marketing. Additionally, sufficient information flow within the beef supply chain is necessary for the provision of beef production information desired by consumers. The purpose of this project is to design and develop a mobile electronic animal information record-keeping and sharing tool, known as the “CalfDex,” for cow-calf producers to support improved management practices and streamline data sharing to downstream customers. The functionality and interface of the CalfDex is being designed based on input collected from cow-calf producers through surveys constructed to identify and prioritize information they would want to record with the tool along with their willingness to share specific information with cattle buyers. Additionally, surveys were conducted with feedlot managers to identify information they want to receive from cattle suppliers that could be efficiently collected and transferred with use of the CalfDex along with their willingness to share selected data with cow-calf producers. Highlighting the potential benefit of a program like the CalfDex, survey results suggest there is a lack of uniformity in the way beef cattle records are kept as well as a lack of data sharing between supply chain participants. The surveys conducted also built an understanding of the prioritized information needs of cow-calf producers and value associated with specific information shared to downstream producers. This insight was considered in designing the structure of the CalfDex to streamline functionality and ensure the program met producer needs. Currently, the CalfDex is in the final stages of the development period. Once development has been completed, beta testing trials will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the program to manage animal information and facilitate information sharing in the beef cattle supply chai

Evaluation of Fences for Containing Feral Swine under Simulated Depopulation Conditions

Populations of feral swine (Sus scrofa) are estimated to include \u3e2 million animals in the state of Texas, USA, alone. Feral swine damage to property, crops, and livestock exceeds $50 million annually. These figures do not include the increased risks and costs associated with the potential for feral swine to spread disease to domestic livestock. Thus, effective bio-security measures will be needed to quickly isolate affected feral swine populations during disease outbreaks. We evaluated enclosures built of 0.86-m-tall traditional hog panels for containing feral swine during 35 trials, each involving 6 recently caught animals exposed to increasing levels of motivation. During trials, fences were 97$5.73/m excluding labor) relative to other fencing options. As such, hog-panel fences are suitable for use by state and federal agencies for rapid deployment in disease response situations, but also exhibit utility for general control of other types of damage associated with feral swine

Modeling Aceria tosichella biotype distribution over geographic space and time.

The wheat curl mite, Aceria tosichella Keifer, one of the most destructive arthropod pests of bread wheat worldwide, inflicts significant annual reductions in grain yields. Moreover, A. tosichella is the only vector for several economically important wheat viruses in the Americas, Australia and Europe. To date, mite-resistant wheat genotypes have proven to be one of the most effective methods of controlling the A. tosichella-virus complex. Thus, it is important to elucidate A. tosichella population genetic structure, in order to better predict improved mite and virus management. Two genetically distinct A. tosichella lineages occur as pests of wheat in Australia, Europe, North America, South America and the Middle East. These lineages are known as type 1 and type 2 in Australia and North America and in Europe and South America as MT-8 and MT-1, respectively. Type 1 and type 2 mites in Australia and North America are delineated by internal transcribed spacer 1 region (ITS1) and cytochrome oxidase I region (COI) sequence differences. In North America, two A. tosichella genotypes known as biotypes are recognized by their response to the Cmc3 mite resistance gene in wheat. Aceria tosichella biotype 1 is susceptible to Cmc3 and biotype 2 is virulent to Cmc3. In this study, ITS1 and COI sequence differences in 25 different populations of A. tosichella of known biotype 1 or biotype 2 composition were characterized for ITS1 and COI sequence differences and used to model spatio-temporal dynamics based on biotype prevalence. Results showed that the proportion of biotype 1 and 2 varies both spatially and temporally. Greater ranges of cropland and grassland within 5000m of the sample site, as well as higher mean monthly precipitation during the month prior to sampling appear to reduce the probability of occurrence of biotype 1 and increase the probability of occurrence of biotype 2. The results suggest that spatio-temporal modeling can effectively improve A. tosichella management. Continual integration of additional current and future precipitation and ground cover data into the existing model will further improve the accuracy of predicting the occurrence of A. tosichella in annual wheat crops, allowing producers to make informed decisions about the selection of varieties with different A. tosichella resistance genes

Field samples with covariates

Field samples from Kansas of Rhopalosiphum padi, Schizaphis graminum, Sitobion avena, and Barley yellow dwarf virus with covariates

all covariates for predictions

Spatio-temporal covariates used to make predictive maps across the state of Kansas