Face Value Research Articles

Reinforcing the 21st Century Pedagogical Skills through the Application of the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) in Secondary Schools in South Eastern Region of Kenya

Studies show that only 27% of graduates believe that Universities and colleges taught them how to ask their own questions. The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) imparts students a way that makes them to think critically every time they read, connect the concepts and when deciding whether to take facts and information at face value or to dig a little deeper. Generally, it is reported that students ask less than a fifth of the questions teachers estimated would be elicited and deemed desirable Poor participation by students in the questioning during teaching and learning process has often led to poor learning outcomes which are manifested by poor performance in academics. The study was instituted to evaluate the equipping of 21st skills to secondary schools’ students using QFT trained teachers in ten schools in the South Eastern Region of Kenya. The teachers and students were trained to develop skills in producing of questions, categorizing questions, prioritizing questions and in reflections. The study found that teachers were eager to be trained in QFT skills so as to enhance an observed low student engagement and poor performance. The assessment of the implementation of QFT in content delivery found that students had many questions to ask if given opportunity and not judged during the teaching and learning process. The analysis of the questions showed that the QFT sparked student’s potentials into divergent, convergent and metacognition types of thinking during and after the teaching and learning process. The teachers had a challenge of focusing the student class questions to achieve the lesson objectives in the stipulated time of the lesson. However, online engagement of students with teacher was observed to be a key in spurring more learners’ curiosity in learning and in developing patterns in their thinking and ask questions and facilitate lifelong learning.

ПОРІВНЯЛЬНА ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКА ВІЙСЬКОВИХ ОБЛІГАЦІЙ ЯК ДЖЕРЕЛА ФІНАНСУВАННЯ ВІЙСЬКОВИХ ПОТРЕБ У США ТА УКРАЇНІ

The history of the introduction of war bonds as a source of financing for various wars in the United States is presented. The share of tax revenues and funds from the sale of military bonds to finance military expenditures is graphically shown. A tendency to reduce the share of military loans among the sources of financial support for military expenditures and to shift the focus to tax revenues is identified. The role of war bonds in financing military expenditures during World War II is described in detail. The main characteristics of military bonds in the United States are presented: maturity, face value, interest rate, and investors. The work of the government to popularize military bonds in the United States is described. The article characterizes military bonds for financing military needs in Ukraine during the period of occupation of part of the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions by Russian mercenaries in 2014 and during the full-scale invasion in 2022–2023. The ways the government has simplified the process of purchasing military bonds, including through the Diia app, are described. The structure of financing defence and security expenditures in 2022–2023 is graphically presented. The dynamics and structure of tax revenues, military bonds, and non-tax revenues as sources of financing military expenditures are analyzed. The focus is on the redemption of military bonds by the NBU through the issue of hryvnia in 2022. It is proved that the effectiveness of the sale of military bonds in the United States and Ukraine depends on the level of patriotism of the population, its trust in the government and faith in victory. The common features of bonds issued in the United States and Ukraine in wartime by the following features are presented: the purpose of bonds issuance, investors' motives, the selling price, and placement of bonds on the stock market. The distinctive features based on the following criteria are identified: currency of bond placement, face value of the bond, types of investors, bond maturity, bond yield, frequency of bond placement in the primary market, and government agencies responsible for bond placement and promotion. It is proved that the issue of military bonds provides countries with the opportunity to attract financial resources for the long term, which allows them to plan and finance strategic military projects, purchase weapons and other military equipment.

Erythroid Krüppel-Like Factor (KLF1): A Surprisingly Versatile Regulator of Erythroid Differentiation.

Erythroid Krüppel-like factor (KLF1), first discovered in 1992, is an erythroid-restricted transcription factor (TF) that is essential for terminal differentiation of erythroid progenitors. At face value, KLF1 is a rather inconspicuous member of the 26-strong SP/KLF TF family. However, 30years of research have revealed that KLF1 is a jack of all trades in the molecular control of erythropoiesis. Initially described as a one-trick pony required for high-level transcription of the adult HBB gene, we now know that it orchestrates the entire erythroid differentiation program. It does so not only as an activator but also as a repressor. In addition, KLF1 was the first TF shown to be directly involved in enhancer/promoter loop formation. KLF1 variants underlie a wide range of erythroid phenotypes in the human population, varying from very mild conditions such as hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin and the In(Lu) blood type in the case of haploinsufficiency, to much more serious non-spherocytic hemolytic anemias in the case of compound heterozygosity, to dominant congenital dyserythropoietic anemia type IV invariably caused by a de novo variant in a highly conserved amino acid in the KLF1 DNA-binding domain. In this chapter, we present an overview of the past and present of KLF1 research and discuss the significance of human KLF1 variants.

ПЕРЕПИСЫВАНИЕ ЧЕХОВА В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ПРОЗЕ: ОПЫТ Д. В. ДРАГУНСКОГО

In modern literary studies, the topic "Chekhov's pretexts in Russian literature of the XX-XXI years" is one of the most popular. That is due to thesimplicity and the evidence of the material used. However, the analysis often stops at the stage of stating Chekhov's reminiscences, quotations, remakes of his plots, etc. However, we should not take at face value this constant presence of Chekhov in the consciousness of modern literature and the declared love for him, there is a constant internal controversy, the attitude towards Chekhov is love and irritation at the same time. It is impossible to understand that situation without referring to the history of Chekhov's reception, including the beginning of the twentieth century. The situation when a writer uses Chekhov in his literary polemic is analyzed using the example of D. V. Dragunsky's work. The writer's position is representative of the modern situation and helps to reveal the reasons why modern authors have a constant internal conversation with Chekhov.

‘Constants’ and ‘variables’ of digitalized education

Introduction. The article examines the problem of informatization of a globalized society. The purpose of the study is to summarize the ideas about the ‘constants’ and ‘variables’ of modern university education as a self–organizing system actively involved in the processes of digitalization. Materials and Methods. In order to achieve the research aim, a thematic review of Russian and international studies on the issues of informatization of a globalized society has been conducted. The study involved a comparison of alternative points of view reflected in the works by B. Readings, P. Cramer, etc. The analysis of existing theories of the information society has been carried out. Results. Reviewing the results of Russian and international studies has shown that the world picture today is structured predominantly by the modern media, while most globalizing trends are becoming less and less manageable. The history of philosophy frequently addresses the problem analysis of such paradigmatic shifts which arise implicitly and take shape in emergence. The article discloses the authors’ understanding of ‘constants’ and ‘variables’ in contemporary university education as a self-organizing system that is rapidly undergoing an intensive process of digitalization. A traditional European university typically demonstrates its ‘aura of age’. The questions are: ‘To what extent is the structure of consciousness influenced by the development of digital resources and by outsourcing the functions of academic word and of individual memory to external digital data media?’; ‘To what degree can production of university knowledge act as an intellectual practice and determine the independence of thinking?’ The problem of establishing the topic of academic engagement and interaction in online formats is considered to be debatable. The authors show that today individuals as subjects of cognitive activities find themselves in a situation where they face value choices, which, in their turn, determine the prospects and the potential of cultural development. Mnemonic operations are to longer perceived as the art of memory. This problem attains special significance during the process of building humanitarian education within the system of electronic communication. One cannot claim categorically that individuals cease to think structurally when they relay the function of storing information to digitized sign systems as a universal resource. Conclusions. The conducted research allowed the authors to conclude that the development of digital technologies as a means of fulfilling social interests means positioning the idea of ‘digital equality’ as the main social asset. This has stimulated establishing cardinally new directions in humanities research. At the same time, the need in relevant and timely connections between the concepts of infogenesis and semiosis is seen today as one of the most current issues in world paradigm problems.

Smart homes under siege: Assessing the robustness of physical security against wireless network attacks

Nowadays domestic smart security devices, such as smart locks, smart doorbells, and security cameras, are becoming increasingly popular with users, due to their ease of use, convenience, and declining prices. Unlike conventional non-smart security devices, such as alarms and locks, performance standards for smart security devices, such as the British TS 621, are not easily understandable by end users due to the technical language employed. Users also have very few sources of unbiased information regarding product performance in real world conditions and protection against attacks from cyber attacker-burglars and, as a result, tend to take manufacturer claims at face value. This means that, as this work proves, users may be exposed to threats, such as theft, impersonation (should an attacker steal their credentials), and even physical injury, if the device fails and is used to prevent access to hazardous environments. As such, this paper deploys several attacks using popular wireless attack vectors (i.e., 433 MHz radio, Bluetooth, and RFID) against domestic smart security devices to assess the protection offered against a cyber attacker-burglar. Our results suggest that users are open to considerable cyber physical attacks, irrespective if they use lesser known (i.e., no name) or branded smart security devices, due to the poor security offered by these devices.

Sexual objectification of women in media and the gender wage gap: Does exposure to objectifying pictures lower the reservation wage?

Using an online experiment, we investigate the influence of sexual objectification in media on reservation wages. In the experiment, subjects (843 women and 307 men in the main analysis) are asked to evaluate advertisements in women's magazines. In the treatment groups, the ads portray women in sexually objectifying poses, while the poses are neutral in the control group. The main research hypothesis is that sexual objectification tends to make women self-objectify, i.e., they internalize the view of the objectifying images, and as a result, they lower their reservation wage. We find that women in the treatment groups do self-objectify: Women who were exposed to the objectifying images described themselves with words related to body shape or size significantly more often than women in the control group. Adding a warning text about the fact that photoshopped images can create unrealistic body ideals did not mitigate the self-objectification. However, we do not find any effect of sexual objectification on women's reservation wages. If we take the results at face value, they do suggest that the objectification of women in media, while having important psychological and emotional effects, does not seem to affect women's reservation wages, at least not directly.

Is there a role for hybrid service provision in place‐based initiatives within the human services sector? Findings from an Australian exploratory study

AbstractThe value of place‐based initiatives in the design and delivery of human services has long been recognised, but the need for hybrid service delivery to clients—that is any combination of online and in‐person modalities—has become more apparent in the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic. At face value, there may be a perceived contradiction between the reliance on geographical place in place‐based initiatives and online service delivery. Yet, it is inevitable that human services will increasingly be delivered in a hybrid form—even in the context of place‐based initiatives. This exploratory study included a modified Delphi method and deliberative panels with policymakers, service providers, and academics with experience and/or knowledge of hybrid place‐based initiatives. A central finding was the lack of respondents’ shared understanding and ability to link the three central intersecting ideas being examined in this research: ‘hybrid’ and ‘place‐based’ and ‘human services’. The principles underpinning place‐based initiatives need to be retained when incorporating online service delivery within place‐based initiatives. This reflects the need to develop a shared lexicon on hybrid place‐based initiatives and more creative understandings and interpretations of the relationship between people and place.Points for practitioners Increasingly, human services are being designed, implemented, and delivered through place‐based initiatives, yet the success of place‐based initiatives often relies on more than just face‐to‐face service delivery. The COVID‐19 pandemic shifted many human services online, but how this has impacted on place‐based initiatives and their defining features of co‐location, collaboration, and co‐design has not been explored to date. Following the pandemic, both service providers and clients see the benefit in retaining and integrating face‐to‐face and online services, without understanding how best to achieve this with place‐based initiatives. This study draws on practices developed during the pandemic to understand how to best provide hybrid services (integrating in‐person and online services) and shows the relevance of hybrid services to place‐based initiatives and considerations moving forward.

Endoscopic Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Laparoscopic anterior lumbar interbody fusion (L-ALIF), which employs laparoscopic cameras to facilitate a less invasive approach, originally gained traction during the 1990s but has subsequently fallen out of favor. As the envelope for endoscopic approaches continues to be pushed, a recurrence of interest in laparoscopic and/or endoscopic anterior approaches seems possible. Therefore, evaluating the current evidence base in regard to this approach is of much clinical relevance. To this end, a systematic literature search was performed according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines using the following keywords: "(laparoscopic OR endoscopic) AND (anterior AND lumbar)." Out of the 441 articles retrieved, 22 were selected for quantitative analysis. The primary outcome of interest was the radiographic fusion rate. The secondary outcome was the incidence of perioperative complications. Meta-analysis was performed using RStudio's "metafor" package. Of the 1,079 included patients (mean age, 41.8±2.9 years), 481 were males (44.6%). The most common indication for L-ALIF surgery was degenerative disk disease (reported by 18 studies, 81.8%). The mean follow-up duration was 18.8±11.2 months (range, 6-43 months). The pooled fusion rate was 78.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 68.9-90.4). Complications occurred in 19.2% (95% CI, 13.4-27.4) of L-ALIF cases. Additionally, 7.2% (95% CI, 4.6-11.4) of patients required conversion from L-ALIF to open surgery. Although L-ALIF does not appear to be supported by studies available in the literature, it is important to consider the context from which these results have been obtained. Even if these results are taken at face value, the failure of endoscopy to have a role in the ALIF approach does not mean that it should not be incorporated in posterior approaches.

African Ethics, Personhood, and War

In this article, I look at the African theory that the formation of personhood is relevant to the morality of war. I start by justifying the project of decolonizing the ethics of war. Then I proceed to clarify that some of the African theories that relate to personhood and war should not be taken at face value, but that the concept of personhood does play a role in the morality of war. I then provide examples of how this concept is relevant for jus ad bellum, jus in bello and jus post bellum. Keywords: African Ethics; Personhood; Just War Theory; Jus ad Bellum; Jus in Bello; Jus Post Bellum

The true fraction of repeating fast radio bursts revealed through CHIME source count evolution

ABSTRACT Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are classified into repeaters and non-repeaters, with only a few per cent of the observed FRB population from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) confirmed as repeaters. However, this figure represents only a lower limit due to the observational biases, and the true fraction of repeaters remains unknown. Correcting for these biases uncovers a notable decline in apparently non-repeating FRB detection rate as the CHIME operational time increases. This finding suggests that a significant portion of apparently non-repeating FRBs could in fact exhibit repetition when observed over more extended periods. A simple population model infers that the true repeater fraction likely exceeds 50 per cent with 99 per cent confidence, a figure substantially larger than the observed face value, even consistent with 100 per cent. This greater prevalence of repeaters had previously gone unnoticed due to their very low repetition rates (∼10−3.5 h−1 on average). Hence, theoretical FRB models must incorporate these low-rate repeaters. Furthermore, our results indicate a significantly higher repeater volume number density, potentially exceeding observed values by up to 104 times, which in turn impacts comparisons with potential FRB progenitors.

The dynamics of phage predation on a microcolony

Phage predation is an important factor for controlling the bacterial biomass. At face value, dense microbial habitats are expected to be vulnerable to phage epidemics due to the abundance of fresh hosts immediately next to any infected bacteria. Despite this, the bacterial microcolony is a common habitat for bacteria in nature. Here, we experimentally quantify the fate of microcolonies of Escherichia coli exposed to virulent phage T4. It has been proposed that the outer bacterial layers of the colony will shield the inner layers from the phage invasion and thereby constrain the phage to the colony’s surface. We develop a dynamical model that incorporates this shielding mechanism and fit the results with experimental measurements to extract important phage-bacteria interaction parameters. The analysis suggests that, while the shielding mechanism delays phage attack, T4 phage are able to diffuse so deep into the dense bacterial environment that colony-level survival of the bacterial community is challenged.

The link between economic growth and emigration from developing countries: Does migrants' skill composition matter?

AbstractTackling the root causes of migration from developing countries through development cooperation has been suggested as an essential part of the policy mix in OECD migrant destinations. This is even though the evidence on whether economic development leads to more or less people emigrating is so far inconclusive. We investigate the relationship between income per capita and emigration to OECD countries separately for three different skill groups—low‐skilled, medium‐skilled and high‐skilled emigrants—being the first to employ panel regression approaches that account for cross‐country heterogeneity and cover a policy‐relevant time frame of about 5 years. Our findings reveal a universal negative association between income per capita and emigration for all three skill groups and for different income thresholds. This implies that policy makers should not be too concerned about potential trade‐offs between (successful) development cooperation and immigration management, at least in the short to medium run that our analysis covers. At the same time, the scope for using development cooperation as a migration policy instrument can be considered to be limited given the modest size of the estimated income effect: Taking our point estimates at face value, a 10% rise in GDP per capita would on average lead to about 3600 fewer immigrants per destination.

Åland, the Swedish People's Party, and the European Union: The Beginning of a Complicated Relationship

Abstract This study provides an analysis of the positioning of Ålandic political leadership vis-à-vis the demands of representation in the European Union (EU) and the corresponding reactions of the Swedish People's Party (SFP) during the referendums on EU membership. By analyzing news articles from 1994, this study shows that the SFP had already sought to establish for itself a mediating role between Ålandic expectations and the political realities on the Finnish mainland during the period leading up to membership in the EU. Founded in 1906, the SFP has traditionally branded itself as the flag bearer of Swedish interests in Finland. On face value, one would assume a lot of common political ground between the Ålandic political context and the Finland Swedish efforts to maintain equal status for Swedish as a national language in an overwhelmingly Finnish-speaking country. However, relations between the SFP and Åland have not always been smooth. Most notably, the party refused to support the Åland Movement's attempts to join Sweden between 1917 and 1921 and was firmly positioned with the other Finnish parties in supporting the claims of the Finnish state during the Åland question. While the rupture between Åland and the SFP never truly healed, they have been able to reestablish new forms of cooperation over the years. All members of parliament (MPs) elected from Åland have sat with the SFP MPs in the Swedish Parliamentary Group. Additionally, Members of the European Parliament (MEP) from the SFP that have been elected since 1995 have consistently hired political assistants from Åland and unlike the other Finnish parties, have been committed to the idea that Åland should get an MEP for itself. This study summarizes the historical modes of cooperation between the SFP and Åland, with particular focus on the SFP's positioning regarding Ålandic demands of representation during the EU membership referendum process. This article shows that EU membership has created a new forum for conflict and cooperation between Åland and the SFP through the struggle for representation in the EU organs, namely the European Parliament. This crucial historical period is analyzed through the lens of “sovereignty games,” which allows for an analysis of the paradiplomacy of an autonomous region within a nation state through a national minority party. As a result, this study highlights the need for a differentiated account of the political interdependence of the SFP and Åland and the importance of avoiding interpreting one side's perspective from the standpoint of the other.

Why we need to complicate things: The teaching and learning of religion beyond simplification

AbstractMuch knowledge production, both academic and non‐academic, is driven by a need to simplify the world in order to enable people to navigate the complexities of everyday life. Such simplifications not only risk offering less reliable representations of the world, they can also turn into disruptive and harmful images of the world. In this article, students and teachers in the field of religion and theology are encouraged to value scientific research as a form of knowledge production that complicates things. In an age in which scientific knowledge is constantly contested and in which it competes with other forms of knowledge production (including problematic ones such as fake news, conspiracy theories, stereotyped representations of religion and religious others, and poorly executed journalism), it is important for students to understand that complicating things is a key step in developing reliable knowledge on religion and the (ir)religious other. This article, written for students starting out in the field of theology and religion and for those who teach them, explains how complicating things takes shape in scientific research by discussing three basic elements: (1) not taking things at face value, (2) understanding science as knowledge production and reflecting on science as production, (3) and realizing that there is no absolute certainty.

Unveiling racism through qualitative research: The politics of interpretation

The main purpose of the article is to present and compare various strategies aimed at encouraging research participants to voice their experiences of racism and discrimination. This is supplemented by the discussion on how scholars can unveil the intersections of multiple systems of oppression reverberating in research participants’ narratives, given the challenge of racial asymmetry in research and the politics of interpretation in a race-mute societal context. Based on their study involving young migrants, the authors argue that qualitative research instruments such as individual and focus-group interviews, visual elicitation, co-creative methods, and video interviews enable individuals to frame their experienced reality in complementary ways. Comparing how each method can conceal or disclose racism, the authors warn of treating narrations on racism on face value and plead for carefully analyzing the extent to which individual narrations align with political agendas and normative discourses within the research's contexts. Addressing each research tool's potential and limitations, the authors also show how the researchers’ epistemological and political positionalities shape their data collection and analysis.

“We usually see a lot of delay in terms of coming for or seeking care”: an expert consultation on COVID testing and care pathways in seven low- and middle-income countries

BackgroundRapid diagnostic testing may support improved treatment of COVID patients. Understanding COVID testing and care pathways is important for assessing the impact and cost-effectiveness of testing in the real world, yet there is limited information on these pathways in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs). We therefore undertook an expert consultation to better understand testing policies and practices, clinical screening, the profile of patients seeking testing or care, linkage to care after testing, treatment, lessons learnt and expected changes in 2023.MethodsWe organized a qualitative consultation with ten experts from seven LMICs (India, Indonesia, Malawi, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa, and Zimbabwe) identified through purposive sampling. We conducted structured interviews during six regional consultations, and undertook a thematic analysis of responses.ResultsParticipants reported that, after initial efforts to scale-up testing, the policy priority given to COVID testing has declined. Comorbidities putting patients at heightened risk (e.g., diabetes) mainly relied on self-identification. The decision to test following clinical screening was highly context-/location-specific, often dictated by local epidemiology and test availability. When rapid diagnostic tests were available, public sector healthcare providers tended to rely on them for diagnosis (alongside PCR for Asian/Latin American participants), while private sector providers predominantly used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Positive test results were generally taken at ‘face value’ by clinicians, although negative tests with a high index of suspicion may be confirmed with PCR. However, even with a positive result, patients were not always linked to care in a timely manner because of reluctance to receiving care or delays in returning to care centres upon clinical deterioration. Countries often lacked multiple components of the range of therapeutics advised in WHO guidelines: notably so for oral antivirals designed for high-risk mild patients. Severely ill patients mostly received corticosteroids and, in higher-resourced settings, tocilizumab.ConclusionsTesting does not always prompt enhanced care, due to reluctance on the part of patients and limited therapeutic availability within clinical settings. Any analysis of the impact or cost-effectiveness of testing policies post pandemic needs to either consider investment in optimal treatment pathways or constrain estimates of benefits based on actual practice.

Conservative Anger and Police Misconduct: Exploring Conservative Discussion of Police on Social Media

ABSTRACT This exploratory study applies thematic analysis to posts made in a popular conservative subreddit on the social media platform Reddit to understand how conservatives discuss police with one another in the context of two ongoing American tragedies—acts of race-based police brutality and mass shootings—in which police seem, at face value, to play very different roles as victimizers and first responders respectively. The study finds that the roles of police are discussed very differently in the online community studied. Within the context of race-based police brutality, popular posts tend to criticize liberals rather than police, and funding police is associated with better crime control. In contrast, posters highlight police inaction during mass shootings—particularly the shooting in Uvalde, Texas—as a form of misconduct and issue calls for accountability. These results suggest that the conservative community studied views defending members of the public as an important obligation of law enforcement, expects that providing the police with resources will enable them to better carry out this obligation, and wants police who fail in doing so held to account.

Canonical Hubble-Tension-Resolving Early Dark Energy Cosmologies Are Inconsistent with the Lyman-α Forest.

Current cosmological data exhibit discordance between indirect and some direct inferences of the present-day expansion rate H_{0}. Early dark energy (EDE), which briefly increases the cosmic expansion rate prior to recombination, is a leading scenario for resolving this "Hubble tension" while preserving a good fit to cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. However, this comes at the cost of changes in parameters that affect structure formation in the late-time universe, including the spectral index of scalar perturbations n_{s}. Here, we present the first constraints on axionlike EDE using data from the Lyman-α forest, i.e., absorption lines imprinted in background quasar spectra by neutral hydrogen gas along the line of sight. We consider two independent measurements of the one-dimensional Lyα forest flux power spectrum from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS eBOSS) and from the MIKE/HIRES and X-Shooter spectrographs. We combine these with a baseline dataset comprised of Planck CMB data and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements. Combining the eBOSS Lyα data with the CMB and BAO dataset reduces the 95% confidence level (C.L.) upper bound on the maximum fractional contribution of EDE to the cosmic energy budget f_{EDE} from 0.07 to 0.03 and constrains H_{0}=67.9_{-0.4}^{+0.4} km/s/Mpc (68% C.L.), with maximum aposteriori value H_{0}=67.9 km/s/Mpc. Similar results are obtained for the MIKE/HIRES and X-Shooter Lyα data. Our Lyα-based EDE constraints yield H_{0} values that are in >4σ tension with the SH0ES distance-ladder measurement and are driven by the preference of the Lyα forest data for n_{s} values lower than those required by EDE cosmologies that fit Planck CMB data. Taken at face value, the Lyα forest severely constrains canonical EDE models that could resolve the Hubble tension.

AIS for Malware Detection in a Realistic IoT System: Challenges and Opportunities

With the expansion of the digital world, the number of Internet of things (IoT) devices is evolving dramatically. IoT devices have limited computational power and a small memory. Consequently, existing and complex security methods are not suitable to detect unknown malware attacks in IoT networks. This has become a major concern in the advent of increasingly unpredictable and innovative cyberattacks. In this context, artificial immune systems (AISs) have emerged as an effective malware detection mechanism with low requirements for computation and memory. In this research, we first validate the malware detection results of a recent AIS solution using multiple datasets with different types of malware attacks. Next, we examine the potential gains and limitations of promising AIS solutions under realistic implementation scenarios. We design a realistic IoT framework mimicking real-life IoT system architectures. The objective is to evaluate the AIS solutions’ performance with regard to the system constraints. We demonstrate that AIS solutions succeed in detecting unknown malware in the most challenging conditions. Furthermore, the systemic results with different system architectures reveal the AIS solutions’ ability to transfer learning between IoT devices. Transfer learning is a pivotal feature in the presence of highly constrained devices in the network. More importantly, this work highlights that previously published AIS performance results, which were obtained in a simulation environment, cannot be taken at face value. In reality, AIS’s malware detection accuracy for IoT systems is 91% in the most restricted designed system compared to the 99% accuracy rate reported in the simulation experiment.