Characterization of ISP Traffic: Trends, User Habits, and Access Technology Impact

In the recent years, the research community has increased its focus on network monitoring which is seen as a key tool to understand the Internet and the Internet users. Several studies have presented a deep characterization of a particular application, or a particular network, considering the point of view of either the ISP, or the Internet user. In this paper, we take a different perspective. We focus on three European countries where we have been collecting traffic for more than a year and a half through 5 vantage points with different access technologies. This humongous amount of information allows us not only to provide precise, multiple, and quantitative measurements of "What the user do with the Internet" in each country but also to identify common/uncommon patterns and habits across different countries and nations. Considering different time scales, we start presenting the trend of application popularity; then we focus our attention to a one-month long period, and further drill into a typical daily characterization of users activity. Results depict an evolving scenario due to the consolidation of new services as Video Streaming and File Hosting and to the adoption of new P2P technologies. Despite the heterogeneity of the users, some common tendencies emerge that can be leveraged by the ISPs to improve their servic

Sex Offender Treatment Program: Initial Recidivism Study

This report presents results of a recidivism study of participants in the Sex Offender Treatment Program at Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, Alaska Department of Corrections, from January 1987 to August 1995. The report provides an overview and history of sex offender treatment in Alaska as well as a literature review of other studies and findings on this area of treatment. The Alaska study, which was the first conducted of the treatment program, found that any level of treatment achieved resulted in less recidivism, with the longer the period of treatment, the lower the recidivism. The study also noted the high percentage of Alaska Natives in the program and the history of alcohol and substance abuse presented by many sex offenders. The majority of offenders in the program were guilty of assaulting children. The study discusses the program's cost benefits as well as the implications of its findings for probation and parole.Alaska Department of CorrectionsI. Introduction / II. Sex Offender Treatment in Alaska / III. Literature Review / IV. Methodology / V. Results / VI. Conclusions and Recommendations / VII. Reference

SSME lifetime prediction and verification, integrating environments, structures, materials: The challenge

The planned missions for the space shuttle dictated a unique and technology-extending rocket engine. The high specific impulse requirements in conjunction with a 55-mission lifetime, plus volume and weight constraints, produced unique structural design, manufacturing, and verification requirements. Operations from Earth to orbit produce severe dynamic environments, which couple with the extreme pressure and thermal environments associated with the high performance, creating large low cycle loads and high alternating stresses above endurance limit which result in high sensitivity to alternating stresses. Combining all of these effects resulted in the requirements for exotic materials, which are more susceptible to manufacturing problems, and the use of an all-welded structure. The challenge of integrating environments, dynamics, structures, and materials into a verified SSME structure is discussed. The verification program and developmental flight results are included. The first six shuttle flights had engine performance as predicted with no failures. The engine system has met the basic design challenges

Autophagy: A cyto-protective mechanism which prevents primary human hepatocyte apoptosis during oxidative stress

The role of autophagy in the response of human hepatocytes to oxidative stress remains unknown. Understanding this process may have important implications for the understanding of basic liver epithelial cell biology and the responses of hepatocytes during liver disease. To address this we isolated primary hepatocytes from human liver tissue and exposed them ex vivo to hypoxia and hypoxia-reoxygenation (H-R). We showed that oxidative stress increased hepatocyte autophagy in a reactive oxygen species (ROS) and class III PtdIns3K-dependent manner. Specifically, mitochondrial ROS and NADPH oxidase were found to be key regulators of autophagy. Autophagy involved the upregulation of BECN1, LC3A, Atg7, Atg5 and Atg 12 during hypoxia and H-R. Autophagy was seen to occur within the mitochondria of the hepatocyte and inhibition of autophagy resulted in the lowering a mitochondrial membrane potential and onset of cell death. Autophagic responses were primarily observed in the large peri-venular (PV) hepatocyte subpopulation. Inhibition of autophagy, using 3-methyladenine, increased apoptosis during H-R. Specifically, PV human hepatocytes were more susceptible to apoptosis after inhibition of autophagy. These findings show for the first time that during oxidative stress autophagy serves as a cell survival mechanism for primary human hepatocytes

Automatic detection of DNS manipulations

The DNS is a fundamental service that has been repeatedly attacked and abused. DNS manipulation is a prominent case: Recursive DNS resolvers are deployed to explicitly return manipulated answers to users' queries. While DNS manipulation is used for legitimate reasons too (e.g., parental control), rogue DNS resolvers support malicious activities, such as malware and viruses, exposing users to phishing and content injection. We introduce REMeDy, a system that assists operators to identify the use of rogue DNS resolvers in their networks. REMeDy is a completely automatic and parameter-free system that evaluates the consistency of responses across the resolvers active in the network. It operates by passively analyzing DNS traffic and, as such, requires no active probing of third-party servers. REMeDy is able to detect resolvers that manipulate answers, including resolvers that affect unpopular domains. We validate REMeDy using large-scale DNS traces collected in ISP networks where more than 100 resolvers are regularly used by customers. REMeDy automatically identifies regular resolvers, and pinpoint manipulated responses. Among those, we identify both legitimate services that offer additional protection to clients, and resolvers under the control of malwares that steer traffic with likely malicious goals

Neural correlates of cigarette health warning avoidance among smokers

AbstractBackgroundEye-tracking technology has indicated that daily smokers actively avoid pictorial cigarette package health warnings. Avoidance may be due to a pre-cognitive perceptual bias or a higher order cognitive bias, such as reduced emotional processing. Using electroencephalography (EEG), this study aimed to identify the temporal point at which smokers’ responses to health warnings begin to differ.MethodNon-smokers (n=20) and daily smokers (n=20) viewed pictorial cigarette package health warnings and neutral control stimuli. These elicited Event Related Potentials reflecting early perceptual processing (visual P1), pre-attentive change detection (visual Mismatch Negativity), selective attentional orientation (P3) and a measure of emotional processing, the Late Positive Potential (LPP).ResultsThere was no evidence for a difference in P1 responses between smokers and non-smokers. There was no difference in vMMN and P3 amplitude but some evidence for a delay in vMMN latency amongst smokers. There was strong evidence for delayed and reduced LPP to health warning stimuli amongst smokers compared to non-smokers.ConclusionWe find no evidence for an early perceptual bias in smokers’ visual perception of health warnings but strong evidence that smokers are less sensitive to the emotional content of cigarette health warnings. Future health warning development should focus on increasing the emotional salience of pictorial health warning content amongst smokers

Reconciling specific and unspecific risk factors: the interplay between theory and data

Contains fulltext : 89487.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)1 juni 201