Minimization of DDoS false alarm rate in Network Security; Refining fusion through correlation

Intrusion Detection Systems are designed to monitor a network environment and generate alerts whenever abnormal activities are detected. However, the number of these alerts can be very large making their evaluation a difficult task for a security analyst. Alert management techniques reduce alert volume significantly and potentially improve detection performance of an Intrusion Detection System. This thesis work presents a framework to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of an Intrusion Detection System by significantly reducing the false positive alerts and increasing the ability to spot an actual intrusion for Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Proposed sensor fusion technique addresses the issues relating the optimality of decision-making through correlation in multiple sensors framework. The fusion process is based on combining belief through Dempster Shafer rule of combination along with associating belief with each type of alert and combining them by using Subjective Logic based on Jøsang theory. Moreover, the reliability factor for any Intrusion Detection System is also addressed accordingly in order to minimize the chance of false diagnose of the final network state. A considerable number of simulations are conducted in order to determine the optimal performance of the proposed prototype

Pakistan indoor air pollution: Investigation of thermal properties of cooking stove

For low-income homes in developing nations, an improved cooking burner is the most practical solution to minimize indoor air pollution. This research was carried out in a rural region of Khipro City in Pakistan's Sindh province. The thermal efficiency and water boiling tests were carried out on the upgraded cooking stove that was designed. The results of the experiment are equivalent to those of published research. The enhanced cooking stove is made of mud and has design parameters of 10-inch height, 16-inch width, and 32-inch length. A twin mouth cooking burner with a chimney to extrude the generated gases is the design. The designed ICS was tested using a water boiling test (WBT) and found to have a fuel consumption of 293 g with 30% efficiency, which is comparable to the claimed efficiency of ICSs. The use of comparable stoves can considerably reduce the quantity of gases produced by cooking, resulting in a healthier lifestyle

Algorithmic and Architectural Developments for Cryo-Electron Tomography

Molecular structure determination is important for understanding functionalities and dynamics of macromolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. Cryo-electron tomography (Cryo-ET) is a technique that can be used to determine structures of individual macromolecules, thus providing snapshots of their native conformations. Such 3D reconstructions encounter several types of imperfections due to missing, corrupted and low-contrast data. This thesis focuses on the algorithmic and architectural aspects of improving and accelerating tomographic reconstructions specifically for Cryo-ET. The thesis explores modern compressed sensing and graph-based non-local approaches for noise removal and for partially recovering the missing wedge. These methods act as a proof-of-concept for the applicability of sparsity exploiting methods to tomographic image reconstruction. The thesis also explores, analyses and explains an extended field (EF)-based noise removal method. When used in conjunction with a variety of reconstruction procedures with a regularization capability it proved to be computationally efficient, reliable and stable. Through extensive empirical simulations it was shown that extending the reconstruction space reduces the error at a relatively lower regularization parameter thus allowing a better fit with the projections and preventing oversmoothing. Computational constraints are a major issue in speeding up tomographic reconstruction and refinement. One of the fundamental components, which often becomes a bottleneck in a variety of analytical tomographic reconstruction methods, is the 2D fast Fourier transform (FFT). Generally, 2D FFTs suffer from edge artifacts or series termination errors, which stem from the fact that two opposing edges of an image are often not periodic. These artifacts can propagate to next stages of processing and appear as errors in reconstructions. This thesis also explores simultaneous 2D FFTs and edge artifact removal for real-time applications. This was accomplished on a multi-FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) reconfigurable computing system with a high-speed bus. The algorithmic optimization and architecture are general and can be replicated t a variety of different hardware setups.Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate Universit

Insights into the Function on the Knee Meniscus

The knee menisci are understood to have a variety of roles including load transmission and stability of the knee joint. To date, there has been no exploration of the role of radial tears of the menisci in inducing kinematic changes in knee joint movement. Furthermore, the function of proteoglycans in maintaining mechanical meniscus has not been explored.Load was applied to cadaveric knees in the intact state and following both a 50% and 100% radial tear of the medial (5 knees) or lateral (6 knees) meniscus. A coordinate system was developed to allow analysis of joint kinematics. Concurrently,confined compression techniques were used to apply 10% strain to meniscal samples from cadavers (30 samples) and patients suffering osteoarthritis (36 samples) in solutions of varying ionic concentration. 7 samples from an Actifit meniscal scaffold were also tested in deionised water. Resultant relaxation curves were fit using finite element modelling techniques. Human tissue samples were assayed for proteoglycan content.Radial tears of the meniscus did not induce significant changes in knee joint kinematics.Finite element modelling demonstrated that the electrostatic effect of proteoglycans contributed to ~40% of the stiffness of the meniscus. No significant difference in proteoglycan content was observed between solutions. The Actifit meniscal scaffold is stiffer than native meniscal tissue but displays similar permeability.Although radial tears do not alter the kinematics of the knee joint, there is evidence they result in abnormal loading of articular cartilage and it is hence important that they are repaired where possible. Proteoglycans play a critical role in maintaining stiffness of the meniscus - current repair strategies such as meniscal scaffolds do not attempt to recreate this function and hence may not prevent cartilage degradation. The stiffness of the Actifit meniscal scaffold may help protect a nascent meniscal repair but may also contribute to abnormal joint loading; its similar permeability will help mimic meniscal function.The knee menisci are understood to have a variety of roles including load transmission and stability of the knee joint. To date, there has been no exploration of the role of radial tears of the menisci in inducing kinematic changes in knee joint movement. Furthermore, the function of proteoglycans in maintaining mechanical meniscus has not been explored.Load was applied to cadaveric knees in the intact state and following both a 50% and 100% radial tear of the medial (5 knees) or lateral (6 knees) meniscus. A coordinate system was developed to allow analysis of joint kinematics. Concurrently,confined compression techniques were used to apply 10% strain to meniscal samples from cadavers (30 samples) and patients suffering osteoarthritis (36 samples) in solutions of varying ionic concentration. 7 samples from an Actifit meniscal scaffold were also tested in deionised water. Resultant relaxation curves were fit using finite element modelling techniques. Human tissue samples were assayed for proteoglycan content.Radial tears of the meniscus did not induce significant changes in knee joint kinematics.Finite element modelling demonstrated that the electrostatic effect of proteoglycans contributed to ~40% of the stiffness of the meniscus. No significant difference in proteoglycan content was observed between solutions. The Actifit meniscal scaffold is stiffer than native meniscal tissue but displays similar permeability.Although radial tears do not alter the kinematics of the knee joint, there is evidence they result in abnormal loading of articular cartilage and it is hence important that they are repaired where possible. Proteoglycans play a critical role in maintaining stiffness of the meniscus - current repair strategies such as meniscal scaffolds do not attempt to recreate this function and hence may not prevent cartilage degradation. The stiffness of the Actifit meniscal scaffold may help protect a nascent meniscal repair but may also contribute to abnormal joint loading; its similar permeability will help mimic meniscal function

Pay and Performance: Among 100 Best U.S. Companies to Work For

In the 21st century, world is becoming a global village and with increased competition businesses are always looking for regions with the lowest possible production costs. Appropriate compensation of U.S. employees working for major U.S. corporations is a hotly debated topic in political circles. This research focuses on the top 100 companies designated as “the best companies to work for” by Fortune Magazine for the year 2006. Performance of these companies, as measured by their return on equity, return on assets, revenue growth and earnings growth along with their profit margin is used to determine the impact on them as caused by their pay to employees. The model will attempt to create a representation of the variables that affect performance of a company relative to its payment to the employees. In order to perform the research 48 publicly traded companies were selected with ranks ranging from and including 1 to 100. Results of the research showed that companies that ranked among the best companies to work for did not have any direct correlation to their performance and growth

Transformational Leadership and Employees’ Creativity: A Multi-Mediation Model

This research aims to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ creativity through mediating role of trust and job autonomy. The study employed cross sectional survey method for the collection of data from 187 employees working in construction and banking sectors of Pakistan. The findings reveal that transformational leadership fosters employees’ creativity through trust and job autonomy. Both trust and job autonomy have statistically significant mediating effect. However, trust being the mediator, plays a more significant role in boosting up the transformational leadership and employees’ creativity relationship as compared to job autonomy. This research helps to know how transformational leadership enhances employees’ creativity by enlightening the mediating role of trust and job autonomy. Further, the findings of this research also help the managers to understand and create such environment which enhances employees’ creativity by focusing on the factors identified in this study. This research contributes to advance the literature on the mediating role of trust and job autonomy in describing the relationship of transformational leader and employee’s creativity and highlighting that trust plays a more important role to enhance creativity in contrast to job autonomy. Further, this is the first attempt to enhance the employee creativity through transformational leadership style and the mediating role of both trust and job autonomy in Pakistan