“It’s Shocking!": Analysing the Impact and Reactions to the A3: Android Apps Behaviour Analyser

The lack of privacy awareness in smartphone ecosystems prevents users from being able to compare apps in terms of privacy and from making informed privacy decisions. In this paper we analysed smartphone users’ privacy perceptions and concerns based on a novel privacy enhancing tool called Android Apps Behaviour Analyser (A3). The A3 tool enables user to behaviourally analyse the privacy aspects of their installed apps and notifies about potential privacy invasive activities. To examine the capabilities of A3 we designed a user study. We captured and contrasted privacy concern and perception of 52 participants, before and after using our tool. The results showed that A3 enables users to easily detect their smartphone app’s privacy violation activities. Further, we found that there is a significant difference between users’ privacy concern and expectation before and after using A3 and the majority of them were surprised to learn how often their installed apps access personal resources. Overall, we observed that the A3 tool was capable to influence the participants’ attitude towards protecting their privacy

Behind the scenes: a cross-country study into third-party website referencing and the online advertising ecosystem

The ubiquitous nature of the Internet provides an ideal platform for human communication, trade, information sharing and learning. Websites play a central role in these activities as they often act as a key point of interaction for individuals in navigating through cyberspace. In this article, we look beyond the visual interface of websites to consider exactly what occurs when a webpage is visited. In particular, we focus on the various web scripts that are often programmatically executed, to explore the extent to which third-party sites are referenced. Our aim is to study these references and the ecosystem that they create. To gain maximal impact while also allowing for a cross-country comparison, our study is scoped to an assessment of the top 250 sites in the UK, USA, Germany, Russia and Japan. From our analysis, there are various novel contributions of note. These include the empirical identification of a vast ecosystem of third-party information processing sites, especially advertisement networks, and the evidential discovery of a few significant players irrespective of country and locale. Through a user study, we also find that while individuals do have some knowledge of the prevalence of advertisements in websites, their understanding of the variety of activities that occur upon visiting websites, is not widely known. Going forward, we therefore advocate for increased transparency in such activities and the wider online advertisement ecosystem

SHARPIN Negatively Associates with TRAF2-Mediated NFκB Activation

NFκB is an inducible transcriptional factor controlled by two principal signaling cascades and plays pivotal roles in diverse physiological processes including inflammation, apoptosis, oncogenesis, immunity, and development. Activation of NFκB signaling was detected in skin of SHAPRIN-deficient mice and can be diminished by an NFκB inhibitor. However, in vitro studies demonstrated that SHARPIN activates NFκB signaling by forming a linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex with RNF31 (HOIP) and RBCK1 (HOIL1). The inconsistency between in vivo and in vitro findings about SHARPIN's function on NFκB activation could be partially due to SHARPIN's potential interactions with downstream molecules of NFκB pathway. In this study, 17 anti-flag immunoprecipitated proteins, including TRAF2, were identified by mass spectrum analysis among Sharpin-Flag transfected mouse fibroblasts, B lymphocytes, and BALB/c LN stroma 12 cells suggesting their interaction with SHARPIN. Interaction between SHARPIN and TRAF2 confirmed previous yeast two hybridization reports that SHARPIN was one TRAF2's partners. Furthermore, luciferase-based NFκB reporter assays demonstrated that SHARPIN negatively associates with NFκB activation, which can be partly compensated by over-expression of TRAF2. These data suggested that other than activating NFκB signaling by forming ubiquitin ligase complex with RNF31 and RBCK1, SHARPIN may also negatively associate with NFκB activation via interactions with other NFκB members, such as TRAF2

Mosaic evolution in an asymmetrically feathered troodontid dinosaur with transitional features

Asymmetrical feathers have been associated with flight capability but are also found in species that do not fly, and their appearance was a major event in feather evolution. Among non-avialan theropods, they are only known in microraptorine dromaeosaurids. Here we report a new troodontid, Jianianhualong tengi gen. et sp. nov., from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Group of China, that has anatomical features that are transitional between long-armed basal troodontids and derived short-armed ones, shedding new light on troodontid character evolution. It indicates that troodontid feathering is similar to Archaeopteryx in having large arm and leg feathers as well as frond-like tail feathering, confirming that these feathering characteristics were widely present among basal paravians. Most significantly, the taxon has the earliest known asymmetrical troodontid feathers, suggesting that feather asymmetry was ancestral to Paraves. This taxon also displays a mosaic distribution of characters like Sinusonasus, another troodontid with transitional anatomical features.published_or_final_versio

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Measurement of the cross-section of high transverse momentum vector bosons reconstructed as single jets and studies of jet substructure in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the cross-section for high transverse momentum W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions and decaying to all-hadronic final states. The data used in the analysis were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV;{\rm Te}{\rm V}$and correspond to an integrated luminosity of$4.6\;{\rm f}{{{\rm b}}^{-1}}$. The measurement is performed by reconstructing the boosted W or Z bosons in single jets. The reconstructed jet mass is used to identify the W and Z bosons, and a jet substructure method based on energy cluster information in the jet centre-of-mass frame is used to suppress the large multi-jet background. The cross-section for events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson, with transverse momentum${{p}_{{\rm T}}}\gt 320\;{\rm Ge}{\rm V}$and pseudorapidity$|\eta |\lt 1.9$, is measured to be${{\sigma }_{W+Z}}=8.5\pm 1.7$ pb and is compared to next-to-leading-order calculations. The selected events are further used to study jet grooming techniques

Realising the right to data portability for the domestic Internet of Things

There is an increasing role for the IT design community to play in regulation of emerging IT. Article 25 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016 puts this on a strict legal basis by establishing the need for information privacy by design and default (PbD) for personal data-driven technologies. Against this backdrop, we examine legal, commercial and technical perspectives around the newly created legal right to data portability (RTDP) in GDPR. We are motivated by a pressing need to address regulatory challenges stemming from the Internet of Things (IoT). We need to find channels to support the protection of these new legal rights for users in practice. In Part I we introduce the internet of things and information PbD in more detail. We briefly consider regulatory challenges posed by the IoT and the nature and practical challenges surrounding the regulatory response of information privacy by design. In Part II, we look in depth at the legal nature of the RTDP, determining what it requires from IT designers in practice but also limitations on the right and how it relates to IoT. In Part III we focus on technical approaches that can support the realisation of the right. We consider the state of the art in data management architectures, tools and platforms that can provide portability, increased transparency and user control over the data flows. In Part IV, we bring our perspectives together to reflect on the technical, legal and business barriers and opportunities that will shape the implementation of the RTDP in practice, and how the relationships may shape emerging IoT innovation and business models. We finish with brief conclusions about the future for the RTDP and PbD in the IoT

Search for pair-produced long-lived neutral particles decaying to jets in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter in ppcollisions at √s=8TeV

The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is used to search for the decay of a scalar boson to a pair of long-lived particles, neutral under the Standard Model gauge group, in 20.3fb−1of data collected in proton–proton collisions at √s=8TeV. This search is sensitive to long-lived particles that decay to Standard Model particles producing jets at the outer edge of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter or inside the hadronic calorimeter. No significant excess of events is observed. Limits are reported on the product of the scalar boson production cross section times branching ratio into long-lived neutral particles as a function of the proper lifetime of the particles. Limits are reported for boson masses from 100 GeVto 900 GeV, and a long-lived neutral particle mass from 10 GeVto 150 GeV

Search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in sqrt(s) =7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for new phenomena in final states with four or more leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of $\sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in two signal regions: one that requires moderate values of missing transverse momentum and another that requires large effective mass. The results are interpreted in a simplified model of R-parity-violating supersymmetry in which a 95% CL exclusion region is set for charged wino masses up to 540 GeV. In an R-parity-violating MSUGRA/CMSSM model, values of m 1/2 up to 820 GeV are excluded for 10 < tan β < 40

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV