An Efficient Approach for Uncertain Event Detection in RFID Complex Event Processing

The globalization of manufacturing has increased the risk of counterfeiting as the demand grows, the production flow increases, and the availability expands. The intensifying counterfeit issues causing a worriment to companies and putting lives at risk. Companies have ploughed a large amount of money into defensive measures, but their efforts have not slowed counterfeiters. In such complex manufacturing processes, decision-making and real-time reactions to uncertain situations throughout the production process are one way to exploit the challenges. Detecting uncertain conditions such as counterfeit and missing items in the manufacturing environment requires a specialized set of technologies to deal with a flow of continuously created data. In this paper, we propose an uncertain detection algorithm (UDA), an approach to detect uncertain events such as counterfeit and missing items in the RFID distributed system for a manufacturing environment. The proposed method is based on the hashing and thread pool technique to solve high memory consumption, long processing time and low event throughput in the current detection approaches. The experimental results show that the execution time of the proposed method is averagely reduced 22% in different tests, and our proposed method has better performance in processing time based on RFID event streams.

On the feasibility of crawling-based attacks against recommender systems

Nowadays, online services, like e-commerce or streaming services, provide a personalized user experience through recommender systems. Recommender systems are built upon a vast amount of data about users/items acquired by the services. Such knowledge represents an invaluable resource. However, commonly, part of this knowledge is public and can be easily accessed via the Internet. Unfortunately, that same knowledge can be leveraged by competitors or malicious users. The literature offers a large number of works concerning attacks on recommender systems, but most of them assume that the attacker can easily access the full rating matrix. In practice, this is never the case. The only way to access the rating matrix is by gathering the ratings (e.g., reviews) by crawling the service’s website. Crawling a website has a cost in terms of time and resources. What is more, the targeted website can employ defensive measures to detect automatic scraping. In this paper, we assess the impact of a series of attacks on recommender systems. Our analysis aims to set up the most realistic scenarios considering both the possibilities and the potential attacker’s limitations. In particular, we assess the impact of different crawling approaches when attacking a recommendation service. From the collected information, we mount various profile injection attacks. We measure the value of the collected knowledge through the identification of the most similar user/item. Our empirical results show that while crawling can indeed bring knowledge to the attacker (up to 65% of neighborhood reconstruction on a mid-size dataset and up to 90% on a small-size dataset), this will not be enough to mount a successful shilling attack in practice.

Predicting bid protests: What should sourcing teams (not) do?

Purpose The purpose of this study is to better understand the effectiveness of buyers’ defensive measures to thwart bid protests in government procurements. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 240 sourcing professionals concerning government source selections is used to analyze a logistic regression model exploring 6 antecedents of bid protests. Findings This research implicates the importance of oral presentations of offers, the type of value procured (i.e. services), protest experience, the quantity of document revisions, transaction costs and cost reimbursement contracts in receiving a bid protest. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to explore sourcing strategy decisions that can contribute to the receipt of a bid protest. It adds clarity to an understudied market of business – the public sector.

Hand Hygiene during Pandemic

After authoritatively announced as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), radical measures to limit human developments to contain the COVID-19 contamination are utilized by the greater part of the nations. Keeping up high close to home cleanliness by continuous handwashing and being cautious of clinical signs are generally prescribed to diminish the sickness trouble. The public and global wellbeing organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the WHO, have given rules to counteraction and treatment ideas. Here, in this short article, in view of accessible clinical data, the writer examines why handwashing could be defensive of COVID-19 contaminations. Albeit a definite and inside and out conversation of different preventive and defensive measures is past the extent of this article, this survey will zero in on the utility of continuous handwashing in limiting the danger of spreading COVID-19 contamination

Defending the Dardanelles: Cevat Paşa, ‘The Hero of 18 March’

Cevat Paşa (General Cevat Çobanlı: 1870-1938) was an Ottoman Army officer who played a decisive role in the defence of the Dardanelles Strait against the Allied offensive during the First World War. He had been primarily responsible for the preparation and improvement of defensive plans as the commander of the Çanakkale Fortified Zone, as well as the implementation of these plans during the Allied naval assault of 19 February-18 March 1915. The ultimate failure of the offensive was mainly due to the careful planning and successful execution of defensive measures under the command of Cevat Paşa.

Game Theory of Data-selling Ransomware

We are experiencing the worst years of ransomware attacks with continuing news reports on high-profile ransomware attacks on organizations such as hospitals, schools, government agencies and private businesses. Recently a few ransomware attackers have gone beyond simply encrypting files and waiting for ransom. They threaten to release the data if the victims refuse their ransom request. In this paper, we propose a hypothetical new revenue model for the ransomware, i.e., selling the stolen data rather than publishing the data for free. Through a game-theoretical analysis between attackers and victims, we contribute a novel model to understand the critical decision variables for the proposed data-selling ransomware (which we refer as "ransomware 2.0") that sells data as well as demands ransom. We compare the role of reputation and the profitability of the data-selling ransomware with traditional ransomware ("ransomware 1.0") that demands ransom only and the data-threat ransomware ("ransomware 1.5") that demands ransom with the threat of releasing data for no compliance. Both theoretical modeling and simulation studies suggest that in general both ransomware 2.0 and 1.5 are more profitable than ransomware 1.0, while ransomware 2.0 is always more profitable than ransomware 1.5. Notably, common defensive measures that may work to eliminate the financial incentives of ransomware 1.0 may not work on ransomware 2.0, in particular the data backup practice and the never-pay-ransom strategy. Our findings also suggest that the uncertainties created by this new revenue model may affect attackers' reputation and users' willingness-to-pay, therefore, ransomware 2.0 may not always increase the profitability of attackers. Another finding of the study suggests that reputation maximization is critical in ransomware 1.0 and 1.5, but not in ransomware 2.0, where attackers could manipulate reputation for profit maximization.

Gross and Histopathology of Goats Feeding on Opuntia stricta in Laikipia County, Kenya

Various plant species such as Opuntia stricta have developed defensive measures, namely, spines, thorns, and other sharp pointed structures to protect themselves from herbivores and other animals feeding on them. Opuntia stricta has invaded the northern part of Laikipia County, Kenya, and its fruits are protected by small spines called glochids. This study determined the pathology in goats feeding on this plant in Laikipia County. Eighteen goats that had eaten the plant and six others that were raised in a ranch without O. stricta were purchased for the study. All study animals were clinically examined for lesions and euthanized for necropsy examination. Clinically, goats affected by O. stricta had poor body condition, wounds on various body parts, and diarrhea. Variable numbers of O. stricta spines occurred externally on the skin throughout the body and elicited pain, swelling, and ulcerative wounds on affected parts. Internal lesions were observed in subcutaneous tissues (100%), together with stomatitis, cheilitis, gingivitis, glossitis, abomasitis (100%), rumen, reticulum, omasum thinning and loss of papillae (72.2%), esophagitis, and duodenitis (5.6%). Carcasses had gelatinous fat and muscular atrophy. Other gross lesions were generalized viscera atrophy, edema, subcutaneous emphysema, lymphadenopathy, abscesses, ascites, hydrothorax, and hydropericardium. The abomasum wall and its mucosal folds were swollen with edema, haemorrhages, and scattered foci of abscesses. Histopathology confirmed the main lesions in all affected goats were foreign-body granulomas which were located in all organs with gross lesions. Goats from O. stricta-free ranches had no spines or lesions. The pathological effects caused by O. stricta resulted in emaciated goats due to pain, inability to masticate and assimilate food, and stress, resulting in poor carcass and organs quality and possible condemnation and death. This could affect the socioeconomics and livelihoods of communities in the study area, and therefore, the spread of this plant needs to be controlled.