Achieving Obfuscation Through Self-Modifying Code: A Theoretical Model

With the extreme amount of data and software available on networks, the protection of online information is one of the most important tasks of this technological age. There is no such thing as safe computing, and it is inevitable that security breaches will occur. Thus, security professionals and practices focus on two areas: security, preventing a breach from occurring, and resiliency, minimizing the damages once a breach has occurred. One of the most important practices for adding resiliency to source code is through obfuscation, a method of re-writing the code to a form that is virtually unreadable. This makes the code incredibly hard to decipher by attackers, protecting intellectual property and reducing the amount of information gained by the malicious actor. Achieving obfuscation through the use of self-modifying code, code that mutates during runtime, is a complicated but impressive undertaking that creates an incredibly robust obfuscating system. While there is a great amount of research that is still ongoing, the preliminary results of this subject suggest that the application of self-modifying code to obfuscation may yield self-maintaining software capable of healing itself following an attack

Uncovering Hidden Profiles; Managerial Interventions for Discovering Superior Decision Alternatives

A common reason for the use of teams in organizations is the idea that each individual can bring a unique perspective to the decision task; however, research shows that teams often fail to surface and use unique information to evaluate decision alternatives. Under a condition known as the hidden profile, each member uniquely possesses a critical clue needed to uncover the superior solution. Failure to share and adequately evaluate this information will result in poor decision quality. In order to mitigate this team decision-making bias, the present study utilizes experimental research to examine the impact of the devil’s advocacy technique on the decision quality of hidden profile teams. Results show that advocacy groups had higher decision qualities than groups under free discussion; however, advocacy teams also had higher levels of anger and lower levels of individual support for their group’s decision. As a result, while these teams selected the best solution, the presence of a devil’s advocate introduces conditions that may hinder the solution’s implementation. Furthermore, similar experiments with advocacy techniques suggest that the positive effect on decision quality found here is reduced in the presence of stronger hidden profiles

Using Culturally Ambitious Teaching Practices to Support Urban Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Culturally relevant pedagogy is an ideology upon which strong urban classrooms can be built. However, culturally relevant pedagogy has not been operationalized in a way that allows consistent implementation in classrooms. This work focuses on the conceptualization of culturally ambitious teaching practices (CATP) in mathematics that exemplify the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy – academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness – with those of ambitious mathematics teaching practices. This paper will describe the findings of the initial work of developing and operationalizing CATP in mathematics through a quantitative and qualitative analysis

A tale of two cinnamons: A comparative review of the clinical evidence of Cinnamomum verum and C. cassia as diabetes interventions

Objective: This review investigates the effectiveness of two cinnamon species, Cinnamomum verum and C. cassia, in diabetes management; their impact on related health conditions and relevant parameters in healthy individuals and safety issues. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, and ScienceDirect were searched from 2000 up to April 2018 for clinical trials using either C. verum or C. cassia in controlling blood glucose and other diabetes-related parameters and conditions. Results: A total of twenty-five studies (n=997) were included for reviewing clinical evidence. Among these trials, fifteen studies investigated the effects on type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients (n=831), four investigated subjects with related clinical conditions (n=82), and six investigated healthy individuals (n=84). Nineteen studies used C. cassia and six used C. verum. Results suggested C. cassia helped manage diabetes at 3-6g, while the effectiveness of C. verum remained inconclusive. In addition, the chemical properties of C. cassia and C. verum differ considerably. Of note, C. cassia contains high levels of the potentially hepatotoxic constituent coumarin. A skin rash was the only adverse event reported. Conclusion: While evidence supports the therapeutic benefit of C. cassia, interchangeability of C. cassia and C. verum remains inconclusive. Further research is warranted to address the effectiveness and safety of these cinnamon species. Given the potential hepatotoxicity of C. cassia, RCTs that include liver function tests are required. Robust RCTs on C. verum are recommended to establish if its efficacy can match its safety profile

A unique challenge: Emergency egress and life support equipment at KSC

As a result of the investigation following the January 1967 fire, which took the lives of three astronauts, materials were developed, flight hardware was modified, and test procedures were rewritten in order to establish the framework within which a more effective rescue concept could be developed. Topics discussed include breathing units, improved life support equipment, miniresuscitators, and hazardous tasks during space shuttle launch and landing operations

Adolescent Drug Use and the Deterrent Effect of School-Imposed Penalties

Simple OLS estimates of the effect of school-imposed penalties for drug use on a student's consumption of marijuana are biased if both are determined by unobservable school or individual attributes. The potential reverse causality is also a challenge to retrieving estimates of the causal relationship, as the severity of school sanctions may simply reflect the need for more-severe sanctions. I offer an instrumental-variables approach to retrieving an estimate of the causal response of marijuana use to sanctions and thereby demonstrate the efficacy of school-imposed penalties as a deterrent to adolescent drug use. This is the first evidence of such efficacy and, given what is known about the consequences of drug use, suggests that school sanctions may have important long-run benefits.drug, crime, adolescent, risky behavior, expulsion

District/State Economic Conditions: District economic overview ; State economic conditions

Economic indicators ; Federal Reserve District, 5th ; Economic conditions

District digest : Economic trends across the region

How a century of legal precedent has shaped the government's power to regulate commerce between states.Economic conditions ; Economic indicators ; Federal Reserve District, 5th ; Trade