Abstract: Some of the key aspects of vulnerability—discovery, dissemination, and disclosure—have received some attention recently. However, the role of interaction among the vulnerability discoverers and vulnerability acquirers has not yet been adequately addressed. Our study suggests that a major percentage of discoverers, a majority in some cases, are unaffiliated with the software developers and thus are free to disseminate the vulnerabilities they discover in any way they like. As a result, multiple vulnerability markets have emerged. In some of these markets, the exchange is regulated, but in others, there is little or no regulation. In recent vulnerability discovery literature, the vulnerability discoverers have remained anonymous individuals. Although there has been an attempt to model the level of their efforts, information regarding their identities, modes of operation, and what they are doing with the discovered vulnerabilities has not been explored.
Reports of buying and selling of the vulnerabilities are now appearing in the press; however, the existence of such markets requires validation, and the natures of the markets need to be analyzed. To address this need, we have attempted to collect detailed information. We have identified the most prolific vulnerability discoverers throughout the past decade and examined their motivation and methods. A large percentage of these discoverers are located in Eastern and Western Europe and in the Far East. We have contacted several of them in order to collect firsthand information regarding their techniques, motivations, and involvement in the vulnerability markets. We examine why many of the discoverers appear to retire after a highly successful vulnerability-finding career. The paper identifies the actual vulnerability markets, rather than the hypothetical ideal markets that are often examined. The emergence of worldwide government agencies as vulnerability buyers has significant implications. We discuss potential factors that can impact the risk to society and the need for detailed exploration.
Abstract: In this study, a plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) process was used to form titanium-aluminum oxide coating on aluminized steel. The present work was mainly to study the effects of treatment time of PEO process on properties of the titanium coating. A potentiodynamic polarization corrosion test was employed to investigate the corrosion resistance of the coating. The friction coefficient and wear resistance of the coating were studied by using pin-on-disc test. The thermal transfer behaviors of uncoated and PEO-coated aluminized steels were also studied. It could be seen that treatment time of PEO process significantly influenced the properties of the titanium oxide coating. Samples with a longer treatment time had a better performance for corrosion and wear protection. This paper demonstrated different treatment time could alter the surface behavior of the coating material.
Abstract: Apple juice is the main raw material for cider production. In this study apple juices obtained from 14 dessert and crab variety apples grown in Latvia were investigated. For all samples soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH and sugar content were determined. Crab apples produce more dry matter, total sugar and acid content compared to the dessert apples but it depends on the apple variety. Total sugar content of crab apple juices was 1.3 to 1.8 times larger than in dessert apple juices. Titratable acidity of dessert apple juices is in the range of 4.1g L-1 to 10.83g L-1 and in crab apple juices titratable acidity is from 7.87g L-1 to 19.6g L-1. Fructose was detected as the main sugar whereas glucose level varied depending on the variety. The highest titratable acidity and content of sugars was detected in ‘Cornelia’ apples juice.
Abstract: Radioactive waste management is fundamental to safeguard population and environment by radiological risks. Environmental assessment of a site, where nuclear activities are located, allows understanding the hydro geological system and the radionuclides transport in groundwater and subsoil. Use of dedicated software is the basis of transport phenomena investigation and for dynamic scenarios prediction; this permits to understand the evolution of accidental contamination events, but at the same time the potentiality of the software itself can be verified. The aim of this paper is to perform a numerical analysis by means of HYDRUS 1D code, so as to evaluate radionuclides transport in a nuclear site in Piedmont region (Italy). In particular, the behavior in vadose zone was investigated. An iterative assessment process was performed for risk assessment of radioactive contamination. The analysis therein developed considers the following aspects: i) hydro geological site characterization; ii) individuation of the main intrinsic and external site factors influencing water flow and radionuclides transport phenomena; iii) software potential for radionuclides leakage simulation purposes.
Abstract: The goal of the present paper is to model two classic lines of research in which employees starred, organizational justice and citizenship behavior (OCB), but that have never been studied together when targeting customers. The suggestion is made that a hotel’s fair treatment (in terms of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) toward customers will be appreciated by the employees, who will reciprocate in kind by favoring the hotel with increased customer-oriented behaviors (COBs). Data were collected from 204 employees at eight upscale hotels in the Canary Islands (Spain). Unlike in the case of perceptions of distributive justice, results of structural equation modeling demonstrate that employees substantively react to interactional and procedural justice toward guests by engaging in customer-oriented behaviors (COBs). The findings offer new reasons why employees decide to engage in COBs, and they highlight potentially beneficial effects of fair treatment toward guests bring to hospitality through promoting COBs.
Abstract: Collagen was isolated from chicken feet by using papain and pepsin enzymes in acetic acid solution at 4°C for 24h with a yield of 18.16% and 22.94% by dry weight, respectively. Chemical composition and characteristics of chicken feet collagen such as amino acid composition, SDS-PAGE patterns, FTIR spectra and thermal properties were evaluated. The chicken feet collagen is rich in the amino acids glycine, glutamic acid, proline and hydroxyproline. Electrophoresis pattern demonstrated two distinct α-chains (α1 and α2) and β chain, indicating that type I collagen is a major component of chicken feet collagen. The thermal stability of collagen isolated by papain and pepsin revealed stable denaturation temperatures of 48.40 and 53.35°C, respectively. The FTIR spectra of both collagens were similar with amide regions in A, B, I, II and III. The study demonstrated that chicken feet collagen using papain isolation method is possible as commercial alternative ingredient.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), total antioxidant status (TAS) and accumulation of Hsp70 in porcine ovarian granulosa cells after deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZEA) exposure in vitro. Porcine ovarian granulosa cells were incubated with DON/ZEA administrations as follows: group A (10/10 ng/mL), group B (100/100 ng/mL), group C (1000/1000 ng/mL), and the control group without any additions for 24h. In this study mycotoxins developed stress reaction of porcine ovarian granulosa cells and increased accumulation of Hsp70 what resulted in increasing activities of SOD and GPx in groups with lower doses of mycotoxins. High dose of DON and ZEA had opposite effect on GPx activity than the lower doses. Slight increase in TAS of porcine granulosa cells was observed after mycotoxins exposure. These results contribute towards the understanding of cellular stress and its response.
Abstract: This paper aims to build a system based on fuzzy models that can be implemented in the assessment of ecological systems, to determine appropriate methods of action for reducing adverse effects on environmental and implicit the population. The model proposed provides new perspective for environmental assessment, and it can be used as a practical instrument for decision –making.
Abstract: With the increase in population along with economic prosperity, an enormous increase in the number and types of vehicles on the roads occurred. This fact brings a growing need for efficiently yet effectively classifying vehicles into their corresponding categories, which play a crucial role in many areas of infrastructure planning and traffic management.
This paper presents two vehicle-type classification approaches; 1) geometric-based and 2) appearance-based. The two classification approaches are used for two tasks: multi-class and intra-class vehicle classifications. For the evaluation purpose of the proposed classification approaches’ performance and the identification of the most effective yet efficient one, 10-fold cross-validation technique is used with a large dataset. The proposed approaches are distinguishable from previous research on vehicle classification in which: i) they consider both geometric and appearance attributes of vehicles, and ii) they perform remarkably well in both multi-class and intra-class vehicle classification. Experimental results exhibit promising potentials implementations of the proposed vehicle classification approaches into real-world applications.
Abstract: Detailed thermal hydraulic investigations are very
essential for safe and reliable functioning of liquid metal cooled fast
breeder reactors. These investigations are further more important for
components with complex profile, since there is no direct correlation
available in literature to evaluate the hydraulic characteristics of such
components directly. In those cases available correlations for similar
profile or geometries may lead to significant uncertainty in the
outcome. Hence experimental approach can be adopted to evaluate
these hydraulic characteristics more precisely for better prediction in
reactor core components.
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), a sodium cooled pool
type reactor is under advanced stage of construction at Kalpakkam,
India. Several components of this reactor core require hydraulic
investigation before its usage in the reactor. These hydraulic
investigations on full scale models, carried out by experimental
approaches using water as simulant fluid are discussed in the paper.
Abstract: In this research, computer simulation is used for Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) plant layout analysis. The current layout of this manufacturing plant is a process layout, which is not suitable due to the nature of an EMS that has high-volume and high-variety environment. Moreover, quick response and high flexibility are also needed. Then, cellular manufacturing layout design was determined for the selected group of products. Systematic layout planning (SLP) was used to analyze and design the possible cellular layouts for the factory. The cellular layout was selected based on the main criteria of the plant. Computer simulation was used to analyze and compare the performance of the proposed cellular layout and the current layout. It found that the proposed cellular layout can generate better performances than the current layout. In this research, computer simulation is used for Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) plant layout analysis. The current layout of this manufacturing plant is a process layout, which is not suitable due to the nature of an EMS that has high-volume and high-variety environment. Moreover, quick response and high flexibility are also needed. Then, cellular manufacturing layout design was determined for the selected group of products. Systematic layout planning (SLP) was used to analyze and design the possible cellular layouts for the factory. The cellular layout was selected based on the main criteria of the plant. Computer simulation was used to analyze and compare the performance of the proposed cellular layout and the current layout. It found that the proposed cellular layout can generate better performances than the current layout.
Abstract: The results of dissertation research "Preventing and
combating corruption in public procurement" are presented in this
publication. The study was conducted 2011 till 2013 in a Member
State of the European Union– in the Republic of Latvia.
Goal of the thesis is to explore corruption prevention and
combating issues in public procurement sphere, to identify the
prevalence rates, determinants and contributing factors and
prevention opportunities in Latvia.
In the first chapter the author analyzes theoretical aspects of
understanding corruption in public procurement, with particular
emphasis on corruption definition problem, its nature, causes and
consequences. A separate section is dedicated to the public
procurement concept, mechanism and legal framework. In the first
part of this work the author presents cognitive methodology of
corruption in public procurement field, based on which the author has
carried out an analysis of corruption situation in public procurement
in Republic of Latvia.
In the second chapter of the thesis, the author analyzes the
problem of corruption in public procurement, including its historical
aspects, typology and classification of corruption subjects involved,
corruption risk elements in public procurement and their
identification. During the development of the second chapter author's
practical experience in public procurements was widely used.
The third and fourth chapter deals with issues related to the
prevention and combating corruption in public procurement, namely
the operation of the concept, principles, methods and techniques,
subjects in Republic of Latvia, as well as an analysis of foreign
experience in preventing and combating corruption. The fifth chapter
is devoted to the corruption prevention and combating perspectives
and their assessment. In this chapter the author has made the
evaluation of corruption prevention and combating measures
efficiency in Republic of Latvia, assessment of anti-corruption
legislation development stage in public procurement field in Latvia.
Abstract: Scheduling is the process of dynamically allocating physical resources to User Equipment (UE) based on scheduling algorithms implemented at the LTE base station. Various algorithms have been proposed by network researchers as the implementation of scheduling algorithm which represents an open issue in Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. This paper makes an attempt to study and compare the performance of PF, MLWDF and EXP/PF scheduling algorithms. The evaluation is considered for a single cell with interference scenario for different flows such as Best effort, Video and VoIP in a pedestrian and vehicular environment using the LTE-Sim network simulator. The comparative study is conducted in terms of system throughput, fairness index, delay, packet loss ratio (PLR) and total cell spectral efficiency.
Abstract: Reversible watermarking that not only protects the copyright but also preserve the original quality of the digital content have been intensively studied. In particular, the demand for reversible watermarking has increased. In this paper, we propose a reversible watermarking scheme based on interpolation-error shifting and error pre-compensation. The intensity of a pixel is interpolated from the intensities of neighboring pixels, and the difference histogram between the interpolated and the original intensities is obtained and modified to embed the watermark message. By restoring the difference histogram, the embedded watermark is extracted and the original image is recovered by compensating for the interpolation error. The overflow and underflow are prevented by error pre-compensation. To show the performance of the method, the proposed algorithm is compared with other methods using various test images.
Abstract: Mosaic refers to a technique that makes image by gathering lots of small materials in various colors. This paper presents an automatic algorithm that makes the photo-mosaic image using photos. The algorithm is composed of 4 steps: partition and feature extraction, block matching, redundancy removal and color adjustment. The input image is partitioned in the small block to extract feature. Each block is matched to find similar photo in database by comparing similarity with Euclidean difference between blocks. The intensity of the block is adjusted to enhance the similarity of image by replacing the value of light and darkness with that of relevant block. Further, the quality of image is improved by minimizing the redundancy of tiles in the adjacent blocks. Experimental results support that the proposed algorithm is excellent in quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis.
Abstract: A general decline in the cost, size, and power requirements of electronics is accelerating the adoption of integrated GPS/INS technologies in consumer applications such Land Vehicle Navigation. Researchers have looking for ways to eliminate additional components from product designs. One possibility is to drop one or more of the relatively expensive gyroscopes from microelectromechanical system (MEMS) versions of inertial measurement units (IMUs). For land vehicular use, the most important gyroscope is the vertical gyro that senses the heading of the vehicle and two horizontal accelerometers for determining the velocity of the vehicle. This paper presents a simplified integration algorithm for strap down (ParIMU)\GPS combination, with data post processing for the determination of 2-D components of position (trajectory), velocity and heading. In the present approach we have neglected earth rotation and gravity variations, because of the poor gyroscope sensitivities of the low-cost IMU and because of the relatively small area of the trajectory.
Abstract: Salt stress adversely affects plant growth at various stages of development including seed germination, seedling establishment, vegetative growth and finally reproduction. Because of their immobile nature, plants have evolved mechanisms to sense and respond to salt stress. Seed dormancy is an adaptive trait that enables seed germination to coincide with favorable environmental conditions. We identified a novel locus of Arabidopsis, designated SHG1 (salt hypersensitive germination 1), whose disruption leads to reduced germination rate under moderate salt stress conditions. SHG1 encodes a transmembrane protein with an ankyrin-repeat motif that has been implicated in diverse cellular processes such as signal transduction. The shg1-disrupted Arabidopsis mutant died at the cotyledon stage when sown on salt-containing medium, although wild-type plants could form true leaves under the same conditions. On the other hand, this mutant showed similar phenotypes to wild-type plants when sown on medium without salt and transferred to salt-containing medium at the vegetative stage. These results suggested that SHG1 played indispensable role in the seed germination and seedling establishment under moderate salt stress conditions. SHG1 may be involved in the release of seed dormancy.
Abstract: Laminar mixed Convection heat transfer of a nanofluid with prescribed constant heat flux on the inner wall of horizontal annular tube has been studied numerically based on two-phase mixture model in different Rayleigh Numbers and Azimuth angles. Effects of applying of different volume fractions of Al2O3 nanoparticles in water as a base fluid on hydrodynamic and thermal behaviors of the fluid flow such as axial velocity, secondary flow, temperature, heat transfer coefficient and friction coefficient at the inner and outer wall region, has been investigated. Conservation equations in elliptical form has been utilized and solved in three dimensions for a steady flow. It is observed that, there is a good agreement between results in this work and previously published experimental and numerical works on mixed convection in horizontal annulus. These particles cause to increase convection heat transfer coefficient of the fluid, meanwhile there is no considerable effect on friction coefficient.
Abstract: Class cohesion is an important object-oriented software quality attributes, and it refers to the degree of relatedness of class attributes and methods. Several class cohesion measures are proposed in the literature, and the impact of considering the special methods (i.e., constructors, destructors, and access and delegation methods) in cohesion calculation is not thoroughly theoretically studied for most of them. In this paper, we address this issue for three popular similarity-based class cohesion measures. For each of the considered measures we theoretically study the impact of including or excluding special methods on the values that are obtained by applying the measure. This study is based on analyzing the definitions and formulas that are proposed for the measures. The results show that including/excluding special methods has a considerable effect on the obtained cohesion values and that this effect varies from one measure to another. The study shows the importance of considering the types of methods that have to be accounted for when proposing a similarity-based cohesion measure.
Abstract: There are many drivers who feel right A pillar of Japanese right-hand-drive car preventing visibility on turning right or left at intersection. On the other hand, there is a report that almost pedestrian accident is caused by the delay of finding pedestrian by drivers and this is found by drivers’ eye movement. Thus, we developed the evaluation method of quantification using drivers’ eye movement data by least squares estimation and we applied this method to commercial vehicle and evaluation the visibility. It is suggested that visibility of vehicle can be quantified and estimated by linear model obtained from experimental eye fixation data and information of vehicle dimensions.