Efficient intrusion detection scheme based on SVM

The network intrusion detection problem is the focus of current academic research. In this paper, we propose to use Support Vector Machine (SVM) model to identify and detect the network intrusion problem, and simultaneously introduce a new optimization search method, referred to as Improved Harmony Search (IHS) algorithm, to determine the parameters of the SVM model for better classification accuracy. Taking the general mechanism network system of a growing city in China between 2006 and 2012 as the sample, this study divides the mechanism into normal network system and crisis network system according to the harm extent of network intrusion. We consider a crisis network system coupled with two to three normal network systems as paired samples. Experimental results show that SVMs based on IHS have a high prediction accuracy which can perform prediction and classification of network intrusion detection and assist in guarding against network intrusion

An empirical analysis of SNS users and their privacy and security awareness of risks associated with sharing SNS profiles (online identities)

Social networking sites (SNS) like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn now have hundreds of millions of users. In this paper a quantitative approach was used to analyse primary data collected about SNS users. Our findings show that SNS users are dominated by younger adults, higher education levels and higher income levels. SNSs are more likely to be used for maintaining existing friendships as opposed to establishing new friendships and for building business networks. SNS users either have poor levels of privacy and security awareness or high levels of complacency in relation to SNS profile sharing and sharing their identity online

The Regulation of Steroid Receptor Co-activator-3 Activity by p38MAPK-MK2 Signaling Pathway

Steroid receptor co-activator-3 (SRC-3) is a co-activator that plays important roles in normal physiology and different diseases including cancer. Its activity is regulated by phosphorylation. Serine 857 (S857) is the most frequently reported phosphorylation site of SRC-3. In this work, we examined several kinases that could phosphorylate SRC-3 at S857 and explored the functional outcome incurred therein. We found that different p38MAPK activators induced phosphorylation of SRC-3 at S857 in a wide range of cell lines. Moreover, using MK2 specific inhibitor and MK2 knockout cell lines we demonstrated that MK2, the immediate downstream target of p38MAPK phosphorylates SRC-3 at S857. The activation of p38MAPK-MK2 signaling resulted in nuclear translocation of SRC-3 where phosphorylation of SRC-3 at S857 enhanced the transcriptional activity of NF-B and IL-6 expression in A549 cells. We found doxorubicin induced the activation of p38MAPK-MK2-SRC-3 signaling axis in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) MDA-MB-231 cells. We studied the role of SRC-3 and SRC-3 S857 phosphosite in doxorubicin-induced cytotoxicity using SRC-3 depleted MDA-MB-231 cells and SRC-3 depleted cells rescued with either wild-type or mutant SRC-3 S857A. Our results revealed that depletion of SRC-3 or use of MK2 inhibitor increased the sensitivity to doxorubicin. In line with this, SRC-3 depleted cells rescued with mutant SRC-3 S857A were more sensitive to doxorubicin than the one rescued with wild-type SRC-3. Furthermore, we have identified several genes dependent on SRC-3 S857 phosphosite and those regulated by p38MAPK-MK2-SRC-3 signaling pathway in TNBC cells. Many of them have been previously reported to be involved in cancer. The identification of MK2-SRC-3 pathway suggests that MK2 can be a new therapeutic target to regulate the tumorigenic activity dependent on SRC-3 S857 phosphosite

Role of keratin filaments on B-cell mitochondrial behavior and functionality

Keratin (K) intermediate filaments (IFs) are IFs of epithelial cell, and one of the most abundant IFs found in the cells, Keratins have various functions including stress protection, cell signaling and protein targeting. In pancreatic β-cells K8 and K18 are the main keratins expressed. Presence or absence of keratin IFs have shown to change the mitochondrial morphology in pancreatic β-cells which in turn likely influences the insulin production in the β-cells. Reduction in insulin production or insulin resistance causes diabetes mellitus (DM). Type I and type II DM was responsible for 1.6 million deaths according to study by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016. The aim of this thesis work was to find the role of keratin IFs in mitochondrial morphology and dynamics to better understand the insulin production by using a cancerous pancreatic cell line, Murine Insulinoma 6 (MIN6) cells. Various microscopes were used to acquire images from the fluorescently labelled fixed and live cell samples followed by image analysis. In this study, it was found that the overexpression of wild type K8/K18 significantly decreased the mitochondrial motility and insulin vesicle count per unit area of the cell while mitochondrial count per unit cell area, mitochondrial fragmentation level and cell area were significantly increased. Likewise, the K18R90C mutation which disrupts keratins filaments, decreased the cell area, insulin vesicle count per unit cell area and mitochondrial count per unit cell area. The liver disease associated mutation K8G62 resulted in higher mitochondrial fragmentation and higher insulin vesicle count per unit area compared to the K8WT/K18WT overexpressing MIN6 cells. In conclusion, these results provide valuable insight to understand the role of keratin in the mitochondrial behavior and functionality which influence the insulin production in the pancreatic cells

Massively Parallel Algorithm for Solving the Eikonal Equation on Multiple Accelerator Platforms

The research presented in this thesis investigates parallel implementations of the Fast Sweeping Method (FSM) for Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-based computational plat forms and proposes a new parallel algorithm for distributed computing platforms with accelerators. Hardware accelerators such as GPUs and co-processors have emerged as general- purpose processors in today’s high performance computing (HPC) platforms, thereby increasing platforms’ performance capabilities. This trend has allowed greater parallelism and substantial acceleration of scientific simulation software. In order to leverage the power of new HPC platforms, scientific applications must be written in specific lower-level programming languages, which used to be platform specific. Newer programming models such as OpenACC simplifies implementation and assures portability of applications to run across GPUs from different vendors and multi-core processors. The distance field is a representation of a surface geometry or shape required by many algorithms within the areas of computer graphics, visualization, computational fluid dynamics and more. It can be calculated by solving the eikonal equation using the FSM. The parallel FSMs explored in this thesis have not been implemented on GPU platforms and do not scale to a large problem size. This thesis addresses this problem by designing a parallel algorithm that utilizes a domain decomposition strategy for multi-accelerated distributed platforms. The proposed algorithm applies first coarse grain parallelism using MPI to distribute subdomains across multiple nodes and then fine grain parallelism to optimize performance by utilizing accelerators. The results of the parallel implementations of FSM for GPU-based platforms showed speedup greater than 20× compared to the serial version for some problems and the newly developed parallel algorithm eliminates the limitation of current algorithms to solve large memory problems with comparable runtime efficiency

Development and evaluation of a software-mediated process assessment approach in IT service management

To operate in a highly competitive business environment, organisations require the support of continually improving IT services. The dominant academic literature on ITService Management (ITSM) focuses on the measurement of the outcome of ITSM implementation. Consequently, there is limited research on the measurement of ITSM processes. The ITSM industry has defined a number of processes as best practices in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) framework and the international standard forITSM, ISO/IEC 20000. However, there is a lack of a transparent and efficient process assessment method to improve ITSM processes. This research aims to address the dual problems of the lack of transparency and the need for efficiency in ITSM process assessment. Using the design science research methodology, an iterative design process was followed to develop a research artefact in the form of a method: the Software-Mediated Process Assessment (SMPA) approach that enables researchers and practitioners to assess the ITSM processes in a transparent and efficient way. The four phases in theSMPA approach include preparation for the assessment; online survey to collect assessment data; measurement of process capability; and reporting of process improvement recommendations. The international standard for process assessment ISO/IEC 15504 and associated assessment models provided support for a transparent method. A Decision Support System (DSS) was implemented to demonstrate efficient use of the SMPA approach. Using a theoretically-grounded fit profile based on the Task-Technology Fit theory, the international standards and DSS technology were implemented in the SMPA approach to address the research problem. The DSS platform was provided by an industry partner Assessment Portal Pty Ltd. that specialises in online assessment services. Two case study organisations provided test sites for the evaluation of the SMPA approach. The two organisations are the Queensland Government’s primary IT service provider, CITEC and the IT service department of an Australian local government authority, Toowoomba Regional Council. Using the quality models from the international standard for software quality evaluation ISO/IEC 25010, the usability and ii outcomes of the SMPA approach were evaluated. Evidence from the case study evaluations indicated that the SMPA approach is usable for ITSM process assessment in order to support decision-making on process improvements. Further discussions of the research findings provided design knowledge that included the emergence of the concept of virtualisability in ITSM process assessments and a proposal of a hybrid ITSM process assessment method. Moreover, iterations ofself-assessments of ITSM processes using the SMPA approach may facilitate continual service improvement. Based on the design knowledge obtained, the contributions of this research to theory and practice were articulated. The SMPA approach extends prior guidelines on ITSM process assessment by providing a fine-grained method to assess ITSM processes. The SMPA approach clarifies the impact of software mediation to support transparency and efficiency in the way process assessments are conducted. This research also demonstrates how the SMPA approach is applied in practice by enabling IT organisations to self-assess the capability of their ITSM processes. Upon reflection, the design science research method was found to be highly suitable to develop an artefact to solve a research problem and to evaluate the practical utility of the artefact. The SMPA approach is a research artefact that is implemented as a DSS; hence it is readily accessible to practitioners. The focus on practical utility provides researchers with results that are more readily endorsed, thus maximising the impact of the research findings in practice

Facilitating Knowledge Transfer for Innovation: Towards a Decision Support System to Identify Knowledge Stock in the ICT Profession

In this research-in-progress paper I show how individuals in a professional service firm passionately, and of their own volition, engage in work activities across multiple social media, that fall well outside of formal work requirements. I refer to the personas these workers create as “alter-identities” to signify that this form of identity work sits alongside formal work roles. Utilising a reflexive research approach, I set out to explore 1) how professionals maintain alter-identities and 2) implications vis-à-vis organisational expectations. I offer initial insights into the role of social media, and the ways in which individuals reconcile alter-identities with formal requirements. I will contribute new insights on the role of digital technologies, such as social-media, in knowledge work contexts, and theorise the role of alter-identity performance as a way for organisations to innovate formal work models in a bottom-up, employee-driven way. Such practices might foster organisational responsiveness in rapidly changing environments

Endoscopic Management of Epistaxis in Lumbini Medical College

Introduction: Epistaxis is one of the commonest Ear Nose Throat (ENT) emergency. Proper guidelines for its management are lacking; on the other hand, the management is mostly done by the junior health service providers which has invited non-standardized practice of epistaxis management. Thereby this study was much inclined towards assessment of the effectiveness of endoscopic management of epistaxis.   Methods: This prospective study included patients above 16 years who were diagnosed with idiopathic epistaxis visiting Out Patient of ENT Department or in the Emergency Department of Lumbini Medical College from 1st of July 2014 to 30th of June 2015. ENT examination was done to find the cause and site of bleeding. Thereafter different epistaxis management interventions were done depending on the bleeding condition. The data were collected, entered and then analyzed using SPSS version 21. The descriptive statistics were applied.   Results: Of the total 116 patients, 53 (45.69%) were male and 63 (54.31%) were female showing no gender preponderance with epistaxis in our study. Majority (49%) of the patients were managed with cauterization with silver nitrate or electrocautery in out-patient clinic. Second most common (18%) procedure was endoscopic sphenopalatine artery cauterization. Nasal packing was done only in three cases with zero posterior pack.   Conclusion: Endoscopic intervention of epistaxis seems to be safe, simple, fast, and effective for the management of epistaxis with low rates of morbidity and complications. Thereby it can be preferred over the conservative nasal packing and considered as immediate second-line management