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Identification of Attack Paths Using Kill Chain and Attack Graphs
Full text linkThe ever-evolving capabilities of cyber attackers force security administrators to focus on the early identification of emerging threats. Targeted cyber attacks usually consist of several phases, from initial reconnaissance of the network environment to final impact on objectives. This paper investigates the identification of multi-step cyber threat scenarios using kill chain and attack graphs. Kill chain and attack graphs are threat modeling concepts that enable determining weak security defense points. We propose a novel kill chain attack graph that merges kill chain and attack graphs together. This approach determines possible chains of attacker’s actions and their materialization within the protected network. The graph generation uses a categorization of threats according to violated security properties. The graph allows determining the kill chain phase the administrator should focus on and applicable countermeasures to mitigate possible cyber threats. We implemented the proposed approach for a predefined range of cyber threats, especially vulnerability exploitation and network threats. The approach was validated on a real-world use case. Publicly available implementation contains a proof-of-concept kill chain attack graph generator
Sex in the Cold War
Full text linkThis article reviews the recent research on sexuality during the Cold War and analyzes similarities and differences in approaches to sex and gender across the Iron Curtain. The focus is on sexual expertise, coming from science and religion while taking into account the voices of lay people in many European countries
The Prisoner's Dilemma in the Workplace: How Cooperative Behavior of Managers Influence Organizational Performance and Stress
Full text linkThe aim of the paper is to analyze the impact of cooperativeness of managers who occupy central positions in interaction networks on the performance and stress levels of a whole organization. To explore this relationship, a multi-parameter agent-based model is proposed which implements the Prisoner's Dilemma Game approach on a scale-free network in the NetLogo environment. A description of the socio-economic aspects and the key concepts implemented in the model are provided. Stability and correctness have been tested through a series of validation experiments, including sensitivity analysis. The source code is available for further exploration and testing. The simulations revealed that improving the stress resistance of all employees moderately increases organizational performance. Analyzing managers' roles showed that increasing only the stress resistance of managers does not account for significantly higher overall performance. However, a substantial increase in organizational performance and a decrease in stress levels are achieved when managers are unconditionally cooperative. This effect is stronger for the lowered stress resistance of employees. Therefore, the willingness of managers to cooperate under all circumstances can be a key factor in achieving better performance and building a more pleasant, stress-free working environment. This paper presents a model for analyzing cooperation, specifically in the organizational context, extending the Prisoner's Dilemma with novel concepts and mechanisms. While the results confirm the existing theories about the importance of central nodes in complex networks, they also provide further details on how the cooperative behavior of central nodes (i.e., the managers) might benefit the organization
The Structure–Agency Relation of Growth Imperative Hypotheses in a Credit Economy
Full text linkGrowth dynamics are often explained by insatiable wants or anthropological constants, modelled as preferences and behavioural axioms. By contrast, structural perspectives postulate a growth imperative due to macroeconomic or monetary system-inherent properties. Reconciling both perspectives, we develop a relational structure–agency framework to evaluate growth imperative hypotheses. We analytically separate the credit structure (including balance-sheet mechanics and nominal uncertainty) from institutional structure, and describe decision norms for households, entrepreneurs, commercial banks, central bank, and the state. Our framework suggests that the interplay of credit principles, income-dependent saving and portfolio saving rationales prevent the interest rate from adjusting downwards and thereby cause mature credit economies to stagnate. Underemployment results in growth policies becoming the dominant norm – seeking, under budget constraints, to overcome declining growth rates. Our method helps identifying agency to resolve this imperative. Preventing real asset inflation to relieve monetary policy at the effective lower bound appears essential
Active Ageing Index as a Tool for Country Assessment and Comparison : The Case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia
Full text linkThe Active Ageing Index was developed as a tool to monitor the potential for active and healthy ageing among European countries and to identify strengths and weaknesses in the country. It is used for policy setting in the ageing agenda. However broadly used, some methodological issues remain, and caution is necessary with its interpretation. Comparison of two countries is used for discussion of these issues. The Czech Republic and Slovakia shared a long history, joined in one state as Czechoslovakia. The current generations of older adults have spent most of their lives in that shared country. Yet, the now separate countries differ substantially in their positions in the Active Ageing Index, with Slovakia ranking much lower than the Czech Republic. In this article, the causes of the differences between the two countries are researched using a thorough comparison of survey indicator rankings, and explained with statistical data and the European Values Study survey 2017. Particular attention is paid to the indicators with the lowest and highest rankings. The results show surprisingly minor differences in most indicators. The most significant difference lay in older adults' employment and health situation, with Slovakia ranking lower. Together, these indicators are very powerful in the overall ranking of the Active Ageing Index
Being Daughter and Mother : Middle-aged Women in Three-generation Living
Full text linkThe purpose of this study is to analyze the position of middle-aged women who are part of multigenerational households. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with these women, we investigate how middle-generation women understand their roles in the family and intergenerational relations, how they position themselves in relation to older and younger generations, and how they interpret the responsibilities and expectations and their fulfillment in the context of multigenerational living. What are the pressures, tensions, and advantages of being in the middle? We demonstrate several levels of being “in between” while analyzing the care demands, responsibilities, and expectations that these women experience in daily life. The article investigates three kinds of activities that women perform in multigenerational living: care for people, care for intergenerational family relationships, and care for homes. We conclude that middle-generation women struggle between the drive for independence and the appreciation of interdependency among the generations that is both a burden and a relief
Encrypted Web Traffic Dataset: Event Logs and Packet Traces
Full text linkWe present a dataset that captures seven days of monitoring data from eight servers hosting more than 800 sites across a large campus network. The dataset contains data from network monitoring and host-based monitoring. The first set of data are packet traces collected by a probe situated on the network link in front of the web servers. The traces contain encrypted HTTP over TLS 1.2 communication between clients and web servers. The second set of data is an event log captured directly on the web servers. The events are generated by the Internet Information Services (IIS) logging and include both the IIS default features and custom features, such as client port and transferred data volume. Anonymization of all features in the dataset has been carefully carried out to prevent private information leakage while preserving the information value of the dataset. The dataset is suitable mainly for training machine learning techniques for anomaly detection and the identification of relationships between network traffic and events on web servers. We also add tools, settings, and a guide to convert the packet traces to IP flows that are often preferred for network traffic analysis
Derived verbs in Dutch
Full text linkThere are three ways of deriving verbs in Dutch: through zero marking (e.g. adem), through suffixation (e.g. modern-iseer), and through prefixation (eg ver-breed). We focus on the prefixed verbs, contrasting two views. According to the first view (De Haas & Trommelen 1993), prefixed verbs are left-headed: the prefix is responsible for the change in category, i.e. [V ver [A breed]]. The second view (Neeleman & Schipper 1993) holds that prefixed verbs are right-headed, and involve a zero verbalizing suffix, i.e. [V ver [V [A breed] ø ]]]. We present evidence for the second view, in line with the position of Neeleman & Schipper (1993), but we in addition argue that the causative-inchoative ambiguity of many of these derived verbs requires the introduction of an additional head in the structure. Finally, we present an interpretation of these heads in terms of the nanosyntactic mechanism of phrasal lexicalization
Prevalence and Correlation with Other Diagnoses in Physiotherapy Practice—A 5-Year Retrospective Review.
Full text linkAbstract (1) Background: The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH) as a primary or secondary diagnosis during physiotherapy practice. No other studies have investigated the prevalence and associations of DDH within the practice of pediatric rehabilitation. (2) Methods: This retrospective review was performed on 12,225 physiotherapy referrals to the King Abdullah Specialized Children’s Hospital (KASCH), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from May 2016 to October 2021. Only DDH referrals for conservative treatment were included in the study. The plan for brace treatment was carried out by the pediatric orthopedics clinic in KASCH. The diagnostic methods were either a pelvic radiograph or ultrasound, depending on the participant’s age. DDH is considered one of the most common secondary complications for children with other medical diagnoses. (3) Results: The most common indication for referral was neurological diagnosis (44%), followed by orthopedic (28%), genetic (19%), cardiac (5%), ophthalmologic (3%), dermatologic (1%) and rheumatologic (0.5%) diagnoses. (4) Conclusion: The prevalence of DDH among all referrals in this study was 6%. In physiotherapy practice, neurologic, genetic, and orthopedic primary or secondary diagnoses were the most prevalent when DDH referrals were investigated. A relatively high prevalence of DDH in the pediatric rehabilitation clinic at KASCH in Riyadh was reported in this study.(1) Východiská: Cieľom tejto štúdie bolo posúdiť prevalenciu vývojovej dysplázie bedra (DDH) ako primárnej alebo sekundárnej diagnózy počas fyzioterapeutickej praxe. Žiadne iné štúdie neskúmali prevalenciu a asociácie DDH v praxi pediatrickej rehabilitácie. (2) Metódy: Tento retrospektívny prehľad bol vykonaný na 12 225 fyzioterapeutických odporúčaniach do Špecializovanej detskej nemocnice kráľa Abdulláha (KASCH), Rijád, Kráľovstvo Saudskej Arábie, od mája 2016 do októbra 2021. Do štúdie boli zahrnuté iba odporúčania DDH na konzervatívnu liečbu. Plán liečby realizovala klinika detskej ortopédie v KASCH. Diagnostické metódy boli buď rádiografia panvy alebo ultrazvuk, v závislosti od veku účastníka. DDH sa považuje za jednu z najčastejších sekundárnych komplikácií u detí s inými medicínskymi diagnózami. (3) Výsledky: Najčastejšou indikáciou na odoslanie bola neurologická diagnóza (44 %), nasledovala ortopedická (28 %), genetická (19 %), kardiálna (5 %), oftalmologická (3 %), dermatologická (1 %) a reumatologické (0,5 %) diagnózy. (4) Záver: Prevalencia DDH medzi všetkými odporúčaniami v tejto štúdii bola 6 %. Vo fyzioterapeutickej praxi boli neurologické, genetické a ortopedické primárne alebo sekundárne diagnózy najrozšírenejšie, keď sa skúmali odporúčania DDH. V tejto štúdii bola hlásená relatívne vysoká prevalencia DDH na pediatrickej rehabilitačnej klinike v KASCH v Rijáde.(1) Background: The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH) as a primary or secondary diagnosis during physiotherapy practice. No other studies have investigated the prevalence and associations of DDH within the practice of pediatric rehabilitation. (2) Methods: This retrospective review was performed on 12,225 physiotherapy referrals to the King Abdullah Specialized Children’s Hospital (KASCH), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from May 2016 to October 2021. Only DDH referrals for conservative treatment were included in the study. The plan for brace treatment was carried out by the pediatric orthopedics clinic in KASCH. The diagnostic methods were either a pelvic radiograph or ultrasound, depending on the participant’s age. DDH is considered one of the most common secondary complications for children with other medical diagnoses. (3) Results: The most common indication for referral was neurological diagnosis (44%), followed by orthopedic (28%), genetic (19%), cardiac (5%), ophthalmologic (3%), dermatologic (1%) and rheumatologic (0.5%) diagnoses. (4) Conclusion: The prevalence of DDH among all referrals in this study was 6%. In physiotherapy practice, neurologic, genetic, and orthopedic primary or secondary diagnoses were the most prevalent when DDH referrals were investigated. A relatively high prevalence of DDH in the pediatric rehabilitation clinic at KASCH in Riyadh was reported in this study
Treatment of cylindrospermopsin by hydroxyl and sulfate radicals: Does degradation equal detoxification
Full text linkDrinking water treatment ultimately aims to provide safe and harmless drinking water. Therefore, the suitability of a treatment process should not only be assessed based on reducing the concentration os a pollutant concentration but, more importantly, on reducing its toxicity. Hence, the main objective of this study was to answer whether the degradation of a highly toxic compound of global concern for drinking water equals its detoxification. We, therefore, investigated the treatment of cylindrospermopsin (CYN) by center dot OH and SO4-center dot produced in Fenton and Fenton-like reactions. Although SO4-center dot radicals removed the toxin more effectively, both radical species substantially degraded CYN. The underlying degradation mechanisms were similar for both radical species and involved hydroxylation, dehydrogenation, decarboxylation, sulfate group removal, ring cleavage, and further fragmentation. The hydroxymethyl uracil and tricyclic guanidine moieties were the primary targets. Furthermore, the residual toxicity, assessed by a 3-dimensional human in vitro liver model, was substantially reduced during the treatment by both radical species. Although the results indicated that some of the formed degradation products might still be toxic, the overall reduction of the toxicity together with the proposed degradation pathways allowed us to conclude: "Yes, degradation of CYN equals its detoxification!"