Distributed Services Architecture with support for mobile agents between services, offer significantly improved communication and computational flexibility. The uses of agents allow execution of complex operations that involve large amounts of data to be processed effectively using distributed resources. The prototype system Distributed Agents for Mobile and Dynamic Services (DIAMOnDS), allows a service to send agents on its behalf, to other services, to perform data manipulation and processing. Agents have been implemented as mobile services that are discovered using the Jini Lookup mechanism and used by other services for task management and communication. Agents provide proxies for interaction with other services as well as specific GUI to monitor and control the agent activity. Thus agents acting on behalf of one service cooperate with other services to carry out a job, providing inter-operation of loosely coupled services in a semi-autonomous way. Remote file system access functionality has been incorporated by the agent framework and allows services to dynamically share and browse the file system resources of hosts, running the services. Generic database access functionality has been implemented in the mobile agent framework that allows performing complex data mining and processing operations efficiently in distributed system. A basic data searching agent is also implemented that performs a query based search in a file system. The testing of the framework was carried out on WAN by moving Connectivity Test agents between AgentStations in CERN, Switzerland and NUST, Pakistan.
Research shows that commonly accepted security requirements are not generally applied in practice. Instead of relying on requirements checklists, security experts rely on their expertise and background knowledge to identify security vulnerabilities. To understand the gap between available checklists and practice, we conducted a series of interviews to encode the decision-making process of security experts and novices during security requirements analysis. Participants were asked to analyze two types of artifacts: source code, and network diagrams for vulnerabilities and to apply a requirements checklist to mitigate some of those vulnerabilities. We framed our study using Situation Awareness-a cognitive theory from psychology-to elicit responses that we later analyzed using coding theory and grounded analysis. We report our preliminary results of analyzing two interviews that reveal possible decision-making patterns that could characterize how analysts perceive, comprehend and project future threats which leads them to decide upon requirements and their specifications, in addition, to how experts use assumptions to overcome ambiguity in specifications. Our goal is to build a model that researchers can use to evaluate their security requirements methods against how experts transition through different situation awareness levels in their decision-making process.
The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is becoming common in our daily lives and cellular networks are effective in providing support services to UAVs for long-range applications. The main target of this paper is to propose a modified form of well-known graph search methods i.e., Dijkstra and A-star also known as A* algorithm, for quality-aware trajectory planning of the UAV. The aerial quality map of the propagation environment is used as an input for UAV trajectory planning, and the quality metric considered for this work is Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR). The UAV trajectory is quantified in terms of three performance metrics i.e., path length, Quality Outage Ratio (QOR), and maximum Quality Outage Duration (QOD). The proposed path planning algorithm aims at achieving a trade-off between the path length and other quality metrics of the UAV trajectory. The simulations are performed using an agreed 3GPP macro cell LOS scenario for UAVs in MATLAB. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the QOR by slightly increasing the path length compared with the naive shortest path. Similarly, the outage avoidance path achieves high QOR at the expense of large path length, and our proposed method finds a compromise and provides an optimal quality-aware path.
Nanotechnology has applications in various fields of medicine. The health and biomedical fields can apply nanotechnology to treatment and drug delivery, enabling the targeted and controlled delivery of drugs and therapeutic compounds. Normally, the body quickly metabolizes drugs upon their entry, potentially affecting their efficiency. Additionally, drugs are often unable to specifically target cells, leading to harmful effects on healthy cells. Nanotechnology is currently being used to address these issues. Nanoparticles, which are tiny particles made up of either synthetic or semi-synthetic polymers, have introduced targeted drug delivery by allowing accurate and regulated secretion of therapeutic agents at specific activity sites. Their efficiency depends on features such as size, shape, surface, charge, and loading techniques. By utilizing their distinct attributes, nanoparticles can overcome biological barriers, improving the bioavailability of drugs and decreasing systemic toxicity. However, excessive use of nanotechnology also raises concerns about its potential nanotoxicity. The interaction between biological systems and nanoparticles can lead to hazardous effects such as genotoxicity, oxidative stress, inflammation, and neurotoxicity. Thus, it is important to examine the nanotoxicity of nanoparticles and develop various ways to diminish their toxic effects. This review aims to summarize the use of nanoparticles for drug delivery to specific sites, as well as their nanotoxicity.
Security analysis requires specialized knowledge to align threats and vulnerabilities in information technology. To identify mitigations, analysts need to understand how threats, vulnerabilities, and mitigations are composed together to yield security requirements. Despite abundant guidance in the form of checklists and controls about how to secure systems, evidence suggests that security experts do not apply these checklists. Instead, they rely on their prior knowledge and experience to identify security vulnerabilities. To better understand the different effects of checklists, design analysis, and expertise, we conducted a series of interviews to capture and encode the decision-making process of security experts and novices during three security analysis exercises. Participants were asked to analyze three kinds of artifacts: source code, data flow diagrams, and network diagrams, for vulnerabilities, and then to apply a requirements checklist to demonstrate their ability to mitigate vulnerabilities. We framed our study using Situation Awareness, which is a theory about human perception that was used to elicit interviewee responses. The responses were then analyzed using coding theory and grounded analysis. Our results include decision-making patterns that characterize how analysts perceive, comprehend, and project future threats against a system, and how these patterns relate to selecting security mitigations. Based on this analysis, we discovered new theory to measure how security experts and novices apply attack models and how structured and unstructured analysis enables increasing security requirements coverage. We highlight the role of expertise level and requirements composition in affecting security decision-making and we discuss how our method produced new hypotheses about security analysis and decision-making.
Abstract Purpose Alternative non‐standard paediatric visual field (VF) tests have been developed to address the challenges associated with standard approaches. However, diagnostic accuracy of these new VF tests has not yet been rigorously evaluated. This systematic review aims to explore diagnostic accuracy and feasibility of non‐standard VF tests in paediatric patients. Methods The following databases were searched for English language studies comparing a non‐standard paediatric VF test to standard methods, such as standard automated perimetry (SAP), manual kinetic perimetry (MKP) and confrontation testing (CT): EMBASE, PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, VisionCite, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov , African Index Medicus, LILACS, Trip and grey literature databases. Studies included were of children ≤18 years old with suspected or known VF defects ( n > 3). Case reports, case series, editorials and letters were excluded. This review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Risk of bias was assessed using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS‐2) tool. Results Thirty studies ( n = 2074 children, age range: 2 months to 18 years) published between 1990 and 2023 met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Twenty index tests were reported, sorted into four categories of methods: behavioural/observational (5), electrophysiological (2), modifications of standard perimetry (11) and eye tracking (2). Risk of bias, based on the QUADAS‐2 results, was unclear or high for most studies. Sensitivities of 10 studies (behavioural/observational [2]; electrophysiological [2]; modifications of standard perimetry [2] and eye tracking [4]) were 60%–100%, 75%, 80%–94% and 70%–100%, and specificities were 98%–100%, 86%–88%, 68%–100% and 50%–100%, respectively. Conclusions Alternative non‐standard paediatric VF tests, and behavioural/observational methods in particular, show potential for adequate diagnostic accuracy and feasibility, although limited to certain conditions and ages. Studies with complete reporting and low risk of bias are needed to determine the diagnostic accuracy and feasibility of non‐standard paediatric VF tests.
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