Institutional Repository of Academic Research University of Macedonia
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2215 research outputs found
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CSE-ARS: Deep Learning-Based Late Fusion of Multimodal Information for Chat-Based Social Engineering Attack Recognition
No full textWith the increasing prevalence of chat-based social engineering (CSE) attacks targeting unsuspecting users, the need for robust defenses has never been more critical. In this paper, we introduce Chat-based Social Engineering Attack Recognition System (CSE-ARS), an innovative and effective CSE defense system. CSE-ARS employs a late fusion strategy that integrates the findings of five specialized deep learning models, each focused on detecting distinct CSE attack enablers: critical information leakage recognizer (CRINL-R), personality traits recognizer (PERST-R), dialogue acts recognizer (DIACT-R), persuasion recognizer (PERSU-R), persistence recognizer (PERSI-R). The system harnesses weighted linear aggregation and employs simulated annealing with 10-fold cross-validation, ensuring optimal model performance. CSE-ARS is trained on the CSE-ARS Corpus, a carefully curated dataset tailored to the intricacies of CSE attacks. Extensive evaluation reveals that CSE-ARS achieves satisfactory results in identifying and neutralizing CSE threats, enhancing user security in online interactions.12160721608
SKILLAB: Creating a Skills Supply and Demand Data Space
No full textThe advent of Industry 5.0 as a defining concept for the future, which advocates a human-centric coalescence of humans and technology or software, renders the skilled workforce the most important asset in any organization or business. The society is 'forced' to adapt itself to technological change and progress for setting the necessary skillsets for the workforce. In order to follow the digital transformation, it is necessary to evoke the reshaping, evolution, or replacement of traditional and possibly obsolete processes at intra-or inter-organizational levels in multiple aspects, introducing innovative ways of re-defining the workforce. To do so, the key piece are data. In this context various platform collect and organize data, also exploiting the new era of Data Spaces (DS). SKILLAB will act as a smart tool for handling, honing, and widening the competencies of the personnel of companies, forecasting future skill gaps and providing European citizens with a tool for upskilling and reskilling, exploiting DS.1017Proceedings of the 4th Eclipse Security, AI, Architecture and Modelling Conference on Data Spac
Vulnerability Classification on Source Code Using Text Mining and Deep Learning Techniques
No full textNowadays, security testing is an integral part of the testing activities during the software development life-cycle. Over the years, various techniques have been proposed to identify security issues in the source code, especially vulnerabilities, which can be exploited and cause severe damages. Recently, Machine Learning (ML) techniques capable of predicting vulnerable software components and indicating high-risk areas have appeared, among others, accelerating the effort demanding and time consuming process of vulnerability localization. For effective subsequent vulnerability elimination, there is a need for automating the process of labeling detected vulnerabilities in vulnerability categories i.e., identifying the type of the vulnerability. Several techniques have been proposed over the years for automating the labeling process of vulnerabilities. However, the vast majority of the proposed methods attempt to identify the type of vulnerabilities based on their textual description that is provided by experts, such as the description provided by the vulnerability report in the National Vulnerability Database, and not on their actual source code, hindering their full automation and the vulnerability categorization from the software testing phase. This work examines the vulnerability classification directly from the source code during the vulnerability detection step. Moreover, this way, a vulnerability detection method will be able to provide complete information and interpretation of its findings. Leveraging the advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, we construct and compare several multi-class classification models for categorizing vulnerable code snippets. The results highlight the importance of the context-aware embeddings of the pre-trained Transformer-based models, as well as the significance of transfer learning from a programming language-related domain.4756Proceedings of the 2024 IEEE 24th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security Companion (QRS-C
What you See is What you Get: Exploring the Relation between Code Aesthetics and Code Quality
No full textSoftware artifacts and source code are often viewed as pure technical constructs aiming primarily at delivering specific functionality to the end users. However, almost each line of a computer program is the result of developers' craftsmanship and thus reflects their skills and capabilities, but also their aesthetic view of how code should be written. Additionally, by nature, the code is not an artifact that is managed by a single person: the code is peer-reviewed, in some cases programmed in pairs, or maintained by different people. In this respect, the first impression for the quality of a code is usually a matter of “reading” the aesthetics of the code and then, diving into the details of the actual implementation. This “first-look” impression can psychologically bias the software engineer, either positively or negatively and affect his/her evaluation. In this article we investigate whether code beauty (or code aesthetics) must be valued in software programs, as a proxy to the quality of the code. Specifically, we attempt to relate the notion of code beauty with code quality metrics. For this purpose, we catalogued existing beauty measures (assessing the aesthetics of images, objects, and alphanumeric displays), tailored them to match code beauty, and correlated them to structural properties that are related to Technical Debt Interest (such as coupling, cohesion, etc.). The results of the study suggest that some code beauty metrics can be considered as correlated to TD Interest; and therefore, the “first-look” impression might to some extent be representative of the quality of the reviewed code chunk.110Proceedings of the 7th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Technical Deb
Managing the traceability system for food supply chain performance
No full textPurpose: The objective of this study is to improve the food supply chain performance taking into consideration the fundamental concepts of traceability by combining the current frameworks, its principles, its implications and the emerging technologies. Design/methodology/approach: A narrative literature review of already existing empirical research on traceability systems was conducted resulting in 862 relevant papers. Following a step-by-step sampling process, the authors ended up with 46 final samples for the literature review. Findings: The main findings of this study include the various descriptions of the architecture of traceability systems, the different sources enabling this practice, the common desirable attributes, and the enabling technologies for the deployment and implementation of traceability systems. Moreover, several technological solutions are presented, which are currently available for traceability systems, and finally, opportunities for future research are provided. Practical implications: It provides an insight, which could affect the implementation process of traceability in the food supply chain and consequently the effective management of a food traceability system (FTS). Managers will be able to create a traceability system, which meets users' requirements, thus enhancing the value of products and food companies. Originality/value: This study contributes to the food supply chain and the traceability systems literature by creating a holistic picture of where something has been and where it should go. It is a starting point for each food company to design and manage its traceability system more effectively.73256358
Forecasting exchange rates: An iterated combination constrained predictor approach
No full textForecasting exchange rate returns is of great interest to both academics and practitioners. In this study, we forecast daily exchange rate returns of six widely traded currencies using combination and dimensionality reduction methods. We propose a hybrid iterated combination with constrained predictor approach. In addition, we examine the impact of positivity constraints on the forecasting ability of each method. Our results indicate that the proposed hybrid method outperforms the simple linear bivariate method and both the iterated combination and the predictor constrained approaches. Positivity constraints significantly improve the forecasting ability of all methods.434983101
Economic Sustainable Development through Digital Skills Acquisition: The Role of Human Resource Leadership
No full textIn the rapidly evolving digital environment, organizations face increasing pressure to adapt to technological advancements while ensuring long-term sustainability. This study was motivated by the critical need to understand how human resource (HR) leadership can effectively foster digital skills development to drive economic sustainable development. Recognizing that digital competencies are now essential for organizational resilience and competitiveness, this research explores the interplay between HR leadership, digital skills acquisition, and economic sustainable development. This study employed the SERVQUAL tool to assess gaps between employee expectations and perceptions across key demographic variables, including age, education level, and employment status. Data collected from 476 participants across several European Union countries underscore the significant influence of demographic factors on these perceptions. The findings reveal a high alignment between employee expectations and perceptions, reflecting the importance of HR leadership in bridging the digital skills gap. Moreover, this study highlights the necessity of integrating HR leadership practices to ensure that digital transformation contributes not only to immediate organizational goals but also to long-term economic sustainable development. This research provides valuable insights into the role of HR leadership in navigating the challenges of the digital era, ultimately offering a framework for fostering a skilled, adaptable, and sustainably oriented workforce.1617766
A note on functional form specification in random coefficients stochastic frontier models
No full textThis study presents a random coefficients stochastic frontier model that can accommodate the flexible translog functional form without being computationally demanding and thus time consuming to estimate. This is achieved by restricting the second-order frontier parameters to be common to all firms. For comparison, random coefficients stochastic frontier models with Cobb–Douglas, semi-translog and translog specifications with all parameters being firm-specific are estimated. The models are applied to an unbalanced panel of German dairy farms, and Bayesian techniques are used for the estimation. The results suggest that the time needed for the sampler to complete in the proposed model reduces dramatically as opposed to a translog model where all parameters are firm-specific. The elasticities exhibit some differences, depending on the choice of functional form, whilst the efficiency scores are less affected. Bayes factors suggest that the proposed model fits the data best.611434
The role of tourism in road traffic accidents: the case of Greece
No full textThe increase in the number of tourists visiting many destinations in Greece could lead to spillover effects on the safety of tourists with road traffic accidents being the major contributor to the morbidity and mortality of travellers worldwide. We employ data from 51 Greek regions (NUTS-3) during the period 2000–2017 to investigate the role of tourism in road accidents. We examine whether road accidents are affected by factors such as tourism, economic, demographic, meteorological, and risk exposure variables. We reveal that tourism affects road accidents in Greece, and that foreign tourists have a significant influence in this regard. Domestic tourists have a significant effect on non-fatal accidents, unlike foreign travellers, who covary more with cases of severe injuries and fatalities. There is a positive relationship between the number of road traffic accidents and tourism; more and longer stays of tourists coincide with increased vehicular collisions. Our findings suggest that domestic and foreign tourists are important to the national road safety policy plan, and that policymakers should be aware of this.27456758
Hydrogen Revolution in Europe: Bibliometric Review of Industrial Hydrogen Applications for a Sustainable Future
No full textIndustrial applications of hydrogen are key to the transition towards a sustainable, low-carbon economy. Hydrogen has the potential to decarbonize industrial sectors that currently rely heavily on fossil fuels. Hydrogen, with its unique and versatile properties, has several in-industrial applications that are fundamental for sustainability and energy efficiency, such as the following: (i) chemical industry; (ii) metallurgical sector; (iii) transport; (iv) energy sector; and (v) agrifood sector. The development of a bibliometric analysis of industrial hydrogen applications in Europe is crucial to understand and guide developments in this emerging field. Such an analysis can identify research trends, collaborations between institutions and countries, and the areas of greatest impact and growth. By examining the scientific literature and comparing it with final hydrogen consumption in different regions of Europe, the main actors and technologies that are driving innovation in industrial hydrogen use on the continent can be identified. The results obtained allow for an assessment of the knowledge gaps and technological challenges that need to be addressed to accelerate the uptake of hydrogen in various industrial sectors. This is essential to guide future investments and public policies towards strategic areas that maximize the economic and environmental impact of industrial hydrogen applications in Europe.1715365