Breaking Bad in Cyberspace: Understanding why and how Black Hat Hackers Manage their Nerves to Commit their Virtual Crimes

Information Systems Frontiers - What is happening in hacker’s minds when they are committing criminal activities? How black hat hackers manage nerves, which is about managing fear and...     

Popular News Are Relevant News! How Investor Attention Affects Algorithmic Decision-Making and Decision Support in Financial Markets

Algorithmic decision-making plays an important role in financial markets. Current tools in trading focus on popular companies which are discussed in thousands of news items. However, it remains unclear whether methodologies from the field of data analytics relying on large samples can also be applied to small datasets of less popular companies or whether these methodologies lead to the discovery of meaningless patterns resulting in economic losses. We analyze whether the impact of media sentiment on financial markets is influenced by two levels of investor attention and whether this impacts algorithmic decision-making. We find that the influence differs substantially between news and companies with high and low investor attention. We apply a trading simulation to outline the practical consequences of these interrelations for decision support systems. Our results are of high importance for financial market participants, especially for algorithmic traders that consider sentiment for investment decision support.

     

Kinetic analysis of cellular internalization and expulsion of unstructured D-chirality cell penetrating peptides

Most cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) are unstructured and susceptible to proteolytic degradation. One alternative is to incorporate D-chirality amino acids into unstructured CPPs to allow for enhanced uptake and intracellular stability. This work investigates CPP internalization using a series of time, concentration, temperature, and energy dependent studies, resulting in a three-fold increase in uptake and 50-fold increase in stability of D-chirality peptides over L-chirality counterparts. CPP internalization occurred via a combination of direct penetration and endocytosis, with a percentage of internalized CPP expelling from cells in a time-dependent manner. Mechanistic studies identified that cells exported the intact internalized D-chirality CPPs via an exocytosis independent pathway, analogous to a direct penetration method out of the cells. These findings highlight the potential of a D-chirality CPP as bio-vector in therapeutic and biosensing applications, but also identify a new expulsion method suggesting a relationship between uptake kinetics, intracellular stability, and export kinetics.     

Effects of Al:Si and (Al + Na):Si ratios on the properties of the international simple glass,part II: Structure

High-alumina containing high-level waste (HLW) will be vitrified at the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site. The resulting glasses, high in alumina, will have distinct composition-structure-property (C-S-P) relationships compared to previously studied HLW glasses. These C-S-P relationships determine the processability and product durability of glasses and therefore must be understood. The main purpose of this study is to understand the detailed structural changes caused by Al:Si and (Al + Na):Si substitutions in a simplified nuclear waste model glass (ISG, international simple glass) by combining experimental structural characterizations and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The structures of these two series of glasses were characterized by neutron total scattering and ²⁷Al, ²³Na, ²⁹Si, and ¹¹B solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Additionally, MD simulations were used to generate atomistic structural models of the borosilicate glasses and simulation results were validated by the experimental structural data. Short-range (eg, bond distance, coordination number, etc) and medium-range (eg, oxygen speciation, network connectivity, polyhedral linkages) structural features of the borosilicate glasses were systematically investigated as a function of the degree of substitution. The results show that bond distance and coordination number of the cation-oxygen pairs are relatively insensitive to Al:Si and (Al + Na):Si substitutions with the exception of the B-O pair. Additionally, the Al:Si substitution results in an increase in tri-bridging oxygen species, whereas (Al + Na):Si substitution creates nonbridging oxygen species. Charge compensator preferences were found for Si-[NBO] (Na⁺), ^[3]B-[NBO] (Na⁺), ^[4]B (mostly Ca²⁺), ^[4]Al (nearly equally split Na⁺ and Ca²⁺), and ^[6]Zr (mostly Ca²⁺). The network former-BO-network former linkages preferences were also tabulated; Si-O-Al and Al-O-Al were preferred at the expense of lower Si-O-^[3]B and ^[3]B-O-^[3]B linkages. These results provide insights on the structural origins of property changes such as glass-transition temperature caused by the substitutions, providing a basis for future improvements of theoretical and computer simulation models.     

Electric field assisted solid-state interfacial joining of TaC-HfC ceramics without filler

The application of ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTCs) demands effective ways of joining in overcoming the problems associated with the fabrication of complex-shaped components. In this study, we choose to investigate a new method of rapidly joining pre-sintered TaC and HfC ceramics without any filler material using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. A well-bonded TaC–HfC interface was observed with no apparent cracking and porosity at the joint. The joining mechanisms were predominantly driven by solid-state diffusion and localized plastic deformation. The nanomechanical properties of the TaC-HfC joint are better than the HfC while comparable to that of the TaC. High-load indentation (up to 200 N) results suggest that the TaC–HfC interface is stronger than the parent UHTCs with no crack propagating at the interface. Upon comparison with the parent UHTCs, the damaged area and the average crack length at the interface, reduced up to ~94% and ~56%, respectively. This study shows that the SPS technique can also apply to joining other UHTCs without any filler, resulting in the new field of developing complex components for the thermal protection system (TPS).     

Polyester functionalization for mycobacterial capture

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the deadliest diseases known to man and ranks among the top ten global causes of fatalities. Children often develop a paucibacillary form of this disease which makes diagnosis arduous even with the aid of sophisticated techniques. In these cases, the concentration of bacteria in their sputum falls below the lowest limit of detection for sputum smear microscopy, the technique predominantly used in developing countries. In this study we aim to test the hypothesis that modifying a polymer, often used in buccal swabs, could assist in creating a capturing and concentrating oral swab for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the pathogenic bacterial species responsible for TB. Such a device will assist in meeting the detection limit and allow for rapid detection of the disease. The polymer used was a micro fibrous form of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) which was surface functionalized with Concanavalin A (Con A), a lectin based adhesin with an affinity for the mannose groups on the Mtb cell wall. The functionalization was mediated with glutaraldehyde as bioconjugate molecule and found to produce a surface uniformly covered with Con A. Affinity studies between the modified fibers and the Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), as Mtb mimic, were conducted to evaluate the capturing abilities of the substrate. The results indicate that the fibers avidly captured BCG and that the fibrous matrix aided in its function. Dilution studies showed successful capturing of the bacterial species at concentrations characteristic of paucibacillary cases. In this study a commercial polymeric material was successfully surface modified with a biological entity to create a substrate to which Mtb could adhere and accordingly be captured.     

Extended Reflexive Ontologies for the Generation of Clinical Recommendations

Decision recommendations are a set of alternative options for clinical decisions (e.g., diagnosis, prognosis, treatment selection, follow-up, and prevention) that are provided to decision makers by knowledge-based Clinical Decision Support Systems (k-CDSS) as aids. We propose to follow a “reasoning over domain” approach for the generation of decision recommendations by gathering and inferring conclusions from production rules. In order to rationalize our approach, we present a specification that will sustain the logic models supported in the knowledge bases we use for persistence. We introduce first the underlying knowledge model and then the necessary extensions that will convey toward the solution of the reported needs. The starting point of our approach is the proposition of Reflexive Ontologies (RO). Here, we go a step further, proposing an extension of RO that includes the handling and reasoning that production rules provide. Our approach speeds up the recommendation generation process.     

Type IV culture or,is it possible to define a framework for universal creativity?

ABSTRACT

The radical limit of post-anthropocentric creativity is a mode of completely nonhuman creative endeavour. Yet, the anthropocentrism prevails and conceptions of radically different civilisations and cultures are defined by current human thought that shapes and limits the understanding of what a genuinely alternative cultural production might entail. This article uses the Kardashev scale of civilisations, classified according to energy consumption at the planetary, stellar and galactic scales to consider culture beyond the current limits of an inherently anthropocentric perspective. In considering microdimensional, informational and universal extensions of Kardashev's scale, critical reflections on the anthropocentric limits of cultural epistemology create an opportunity to posit a universal framework of creativity.     

Modelling Fine-Grained Access Control Policies in Grids

This paper presents an abstract specification of an enforcement mechanism of usage control for Grids, and verifies formally that such mechanism enforces UCON policies. Our technique is based on KAOS, a goal-oriented requirements engineering methodology with a formal LTL-based language and semantics. KAOS is used in a bottom-up form. We abstract the specification of the enforcement mechanism from current implementations of usage control for Grids. The result of this process is agent and operation models that describe the main components and operations of the enforcement mechanism. KAOS is used in top-down form by applying goal-refinement in order to refine UCON policies. The result of this process is a goal-refinement tree, which shows how a goal (policy) can be decomposed into sub-goals. Verification that a policy can be enforced is then equivalent to prove that a goal can be implemented by the enforcement mechanism represented by the agent and operation models.