Improving Salience Retention and Identification in the Automated Filtering of Event Log Messages

<p>Event log messages are currently the only genuine interface through which computer systems administrators can effectively monitor their systems and assemble a mental perception of system state. The popularisation of the Internet and the accompanying meteoric growth of business-critical systems has resulted in an overwhelming volume of event log messages, channeled through mechanisms whose designers could not have envisaged the scale of the problem. Messages regarding intrusion detection, hardware status, operating system status changes, database tablespaces, and so on, are being produced at the rate of many gigabytes per day for a significant computing environment. Filtering technologies have not been able to keep up. Most messages go unnoticed; no filtering whatsoever is performed on them, at least in part due to the difficulty of implementing and maintaining an effective filtering solution. The most commonly-deployed filtering alternatives rely on regular expressions to match pre-defi ned strings, with 100% accuracy, which can then become ineffective as the code base for the software producing the messages 'drifts' away from those strings. The exactness requirement means all possible failure scenarios must be accurately anticipated and their events catered for with regular expressions, in order to make full use of this technique. Alternatives to regular expressions remain largely academic. Data mining, automated corpus construction, and neural networks, to name the highest-profi le ones, only produce probabilistic results and are either difficult or impossible to alter in any deterministic way. Policies are therefore not supported under these alternatives. This thesis explores a new architecture which utilises rich metadata in order to avoid the burden of message interpretation. The metadata itself is based on an intention to improve end-to-end communication and reduce ambiguity. A simple yet effective filtering scheme is also presented which fi lters log messages through a short and easily-customisable set of rules. With such an architecture, it is envisaged that systems administrators could signi ficantly improve their awareness of their systems while avoiding many of the false-positives and -negatives which plague today's fi ltering solutions.</p>

Improving Salience Retention and Identification in the Automated Filtering of Event Log Messages

<p>Event log messages are currently the only genuine interface through which computer systems administrators can effectively monitor their systems and assemble a mental perception of system state. The popularisation of the Internet and the accompanying meteoric growth of business-critical systems has resulted in an overwhelming volume of event log messages, channeled through mechanisms whose designers could not have envisaged the scale of the problem. Messages regarding intrusion detection, hardware status, operating system status changes, database tablespaces, and so on, are being produced at the rate of many gigabytes per day for a significant computing environment. Filtering technologies have not been able to keep up. Most messages go unnoticed; no filtering whatsoever is performed on them, at least in part due to the difficulty of implementing and maintaining an effective filtering solution. The most commonly-deployed filtering alternatives rely on regular expressions to match pre-defi ned strings, with 100% accuracy, which can then become ineffective as the code base for the software producing the messages 'drifts' away from those strings. The exactness requirement means all possible failure scenarios must be accurately anticipated and their events catered for with regular expressions, in order to make full use of this technique. Alternatives to regular expressions remain largely academic. Data mining, automated corpus construction, and neural networks, to name the highest-profi le ones, only produce probabilistic results and are either difficult or impossible to alter in any deterministic way. Policies are therefore not supported under these alternatives. This thesis explores a new architecture which utilises rich metadata in order to avoid the burden of message interpretation. The metadata itself is based on an intention to improve end-to-end communication and reduce ambiguity. A simple yet effective filtering scheme is also presented which fi lters log messages through a short and easily-customisable set of rules. With such an architecture, it is envisaged that systems administrators could signi ficantly improve their awareness of their systems while avoiding many of the false-positives and -negatives which plague today's fi ltering solutions.</p>

A simple model of speech communication and its application to intelligibility enhancement

We introduce a model of communication that includes noise inherent in the message production process as well as noise inherent in the message interpretation process. The production and interpretation noise processes have a fixed signal-to-noise ratio. The resulting system is a simple but effective model of human communication. The model naturally leads to a method to enhance the intelligibility of speech rendered in a noisy environment. State-of-the-art experimental results confirm the practical value of the model. © 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

A simple model of speech communication and its application to intelligibility enhancement

We introduce a model of communication that includes noise inherent in the message production process as well as noise inherent in the message interpretation process. The production and interpretation noise processes have a fixed signal-to-noise ratio. The resulting system is a simple but effective model of human communication. The model naturally leads to a method to enhance the intelligibility of speech rendered in a noisy environment. State-of-the-art experimental results confirm the practical value of the model. © 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Emotions on pictures in motion

Movies are stories that convey the viewer to intensely experiment deep-rooted emotional messages. Film contents are predominantly delivered through vision and audition perceptive channel senses, with a wide gamma of colour sets and sound atmospheres managed to create moods, able as well to generate equilibrium awareness effects, as motion pictures glide through our attention. They can trigger emotions, thoughts and memories, derived of personal ecosystem attention structures. Distinct behaviours at the message interpretation are predisposed by cultural antecedents, validation associations and a reflection of individual emotions. Communication is a process of interaction, that leads the individual to establish perceptual and cognitive relationships with the transmitted message, such as: sensing, selecting and signifying. Therefore, meanings generated by the movie scene unravelling can be enhanced by detailed scenic cinema photography composition, as well through electing specific hue palette, saturation and brightness on image implementation, features that drive to conform an involving narrative, modulating the communication space mediation on movie creation. The semiotic field understanding, at cinema photography aesthetics and color-grading, bring about new insights of how to achieve meaningful messages, that can produce enjoyment and connection between people, within the cinematic masterpiece.

Techniques for Improving Communication of Emotional Content in Text-Only Web-Based Therapeutic Communications: Systematic Review

Background Web-based typed exchanges are increasingly used by professionals to provide emotional support to patients. Although some empirical evidence exists to suggest that various strategies may be used to convey emotion during Web-based text communication, there has been no critical review of these data in patients with chronic conditions. Objectives The objective of this review was to identify the techniques used to convey emotion in written or typed Web-based communication and assess the empirical evidence regarding impact on communication and psychological outcomes. Methods An electronic search of databases, including MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library was conducted to identify literature published from 1990 to 2016. Searches were also conducted using Google Scholar, manual searching of reference lists of identified papers and manual searching of tables of contents for selected relevant journals. Data extraction and coding were completed by 2 reviewers (10.00% [573/5731] of screened papers, at abstract/title screening stage; 10.0% of screened [69/694] papers, at full-text screening stage). Publications were assessed against the eligibility criteria and excluded if they were duplicates, were not published in English, were published before 1990, referenced animal or nonhuman subjects, did not describe original research, were not journal papers, or did not empirically test the effect of one or more nonverbal communication techniques (for eg, smileys, emoticons, emotional bracketing, voice accentuation, trailers [ellipsis], and pseudowords) as part of Web-based or typed communication on communication-related variables, including message interpretation, social presence, the nature of the interaction (eg, therapeutic alliance), patient perceptions of the interaction (eg, participant satisfaction), or psychological outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and distress. Results A total of 6902 unique publications were identified. Of these, six publications met the eligibility criteria and were included in a narrative synthesis. All six studies addressed the effect of smileys or emoticons on participant responses, message interpretation, or social presence of the writer. None of these studies specifically targeted chronic conditions. It was found that emoticons were more effective in influencing the emotional impact of a message than no cue and that smileys and emoticons were able to convey a limited amount of emotion. No studies addressed other techniques for conveying emotion in written communication. No studies addressed the effects of any techniques on the nature of the interaction (eg, therapeutic alliance), patient perceptions of the interaction (eg, participant satisfaction), or psychological outcomes (depression, anxiety, or distress). Conclusions There is a need for greater empirical attention to the effects of the various proposed techniques for conveying emotion in Web-based typed communications to inform health service providers regarding best-practice communication skills in this setting.

Health communication in the blogosphere : rethinking source and message strategies for "hot cognition" publics

Strategic health communication in the 21st Century is dynamic and complex. The digital communication environment has facilitated convicted, polarized opinions, the validity of science is under scrutiny, "expert" recommendations are questioned, and public trust is at an all-time low. Together, these phenomena have created obstacles for strategic health communicators tasked with developing effective promotional messages to influence positive health attitudes and behaviors. This research sought to understand how health and science beliefs, perceptions of trust, and different source and message strategies influence promotional health message interpretation. A 2 (source: health professional vs. mom blogger) X 2 (message strategy: scientific evidence vs. experiential narrative) online experiment for two health issues (vaccines and dairy milk) examined these questions. Findings suggest that preexisting attitudes, trust in science and health beliefs are strong predictors of health attitudes and behaviors. These variables also work together with different source and message strategies to influence message interpretation. Data strongly supports the use of a layperson source and narrative message style as the most effective strategy for positively influencing attitudes and behaviors of "hot cognition" publics. Results also reflect the need for long-term strategies increasing public trust in scientific endeavors so that health promotion in the future can be as effective and influential as possible.

Tsunami Warning Message Interpretation and Sense Making: Focus Group Insights

Hazard warning messages are intended to shift people from a sense of safety to a sense of risk, while providing guidance for protective action. Message features, such as the content elements that are included and the style in which a message is written or delivered, can strengthen or weaken a recipient’s ability to make sense of and act on the message. Under conditions of heightened uncertainty or imminent threat the strategies that people apply to interpret warning messages may make a difference in the protective actions that they choose to take. Importantly, when a hazard is unfamiliar and the threat is imminent, adequate mental models and clearly articulated messages become vital to one’s ability to make decisions about life safety. To better understand the message interpretation and the effects of message sense making on individual risk information processing, this article assesses warnings for an infrequently experienced threat: tsunamis. Using data from four focus groups this research finds that individuals engage in interpretive sense making activities by making comparisons to media accounts of tsunamis and drawing from personal experience with waves and with warnings for other hazards, particularly tornadoes. The analysis presents three primary insights: 1) hazard warning messages must be designed for the end user in mind, including those who are unfamiliar with the hazard; 2) clear and specific information helps to personalize the threat and to reduce anxiety; and 3) message receivers draw from personal and vicarious experiences to assist in message sense making, highlighting the need for consistent language across hazard warnings.

That’s Not What I Meant

Misunderstanding is an integral and unavoidable element of communication. This article links misunderstanding theoretically to message interpretation and conflict, then presents the results of a study that examined relationships among misunderstanding, channel of communication, and three forms of perspective-taking. Participants ( n = 98) responded to scaled items and described experiences of misunderstanding. Results showed that face-to-face misunderstandings are more serious than those that occur in computer-mediated communication. Dispositional perspective-taking, situational perspective-taking, and partner’s situational perspective-taking were correlated with features such as frequency of misunderstanding, use of integrative strategies, open communication, humor, personal offense, and communication satisfaction. In about two thirds of the reported misunderstandings, the problem occurred because of the tone of the message, an interlocutor took personal offense, and open communication was used to resolve it. The findings are consistent with predictions concerning perspective-taking and extend understanding of misunderstanding. Recommendations include examining misunderstanding, especially in CMC, in greater depth.