Passive Defense Research Articles

Evaluation of the impact of supplying a marine diesel engine with a mixture of diesel oil and n-butanol on its efficiency and emission of toxic compounds

The article presents the results of research on the impact of feeding marine reciprocating internal combustion engines with blends of diesel fuel and n-butanol on their performance parameters. The study includes a research plan and empirical results, in which the engine efficiency and emissions of harmful compounds in the exhaust gases were determined. The research indicates that it is resonable to use fuel blends containing n-butanol. N-butanol positively affect the concentration of NOx has positive impact on reducing the toxicity of exhaust gases. An important aspect of the passive defence of a vessel is the reduction of exhaust gas temperature under nominal loads.

Evolution and natural selection of ribosome-inactivating proteins in bacteria, fungi, and plants

Ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs) are found in bacteria, fungi, and plants, with a wide range of biological resistances such as anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-insect, and anti-tumor. They can be roughly divided into proactive defense bacterial or fungal types and passive defense plant types. We identified 1592 RIP genes in bacteria, fungi, and plants. Approximately 88 % of the 764 bacterial RIPs were Shiga or Shiga-like toxins which were exotoxins and could rapidly enter cells to possess strong biotoxicity, and about 98 % of fungal RIPs were predicted as secreted proteins. RIPs were not detected in non-seed plants such as algae, bryophytes, and ferns. However, we found RIPs in some flowering and non-flowering seed plants. The existence of plant RIPs might be related to the structure of seeds or fruits, which might be associated with whether seeds are easy to survive and spread. The evolutionary characteristics of RIPs were different between dicotyledons and monocotyledons. In addition, we also found that RIP2 genes might emerge very early and be plant-specific. Some plant RIP1 genes might evolve from RIP2 genes. This study provides new insights into the evolution of RIPs.

Erratum: The tarantula Grammostola anthracina uses type IV urticating setae in passive defence: evidence from its presence on the ootheca

Erratum: The tarantula Grammostola anthracina uses type IV urticating setae in passive defence: evidence from its presence on the ootheca

Detection of Reflected XSS Vulnerabilities Based on Paths-Attention Method

Cross-site scripting vulnerability (XSS) is one of the most frequently exploited and harmful vulnerabilities among web vulnerabilities. In recent years, many researchers have used different machine learning methods to detect network attacks, but these methods have not achieved high accuracy and recall rates and cannot effectively combat XSS attacks. Designing a model that can achieve high accuracy and truly proactive defense against reflected XSS vulnerabilities has become a top priority for maintaining user network security at this stage. In this paper, we propose a detection model for reflected XSS vulnerabilities based on the paths-attention method (PATS model). Firstly, the model converts vulnerability data into an intermediate representation of abstract syntax trees, then traverses the abstract syntax tree to generate multiple sets of syntactic paths, and then converts them into vector representations through word embedding matrices. The model extracts semantic features using attention mechanisms to improve training effectiveness by assigning appropriate weights to different sets of syntactic paths as it learns with neural networks, which realizes the transformation from passive defense to active defense. Additionally, in the dataset processing section, we point out the shortcomings of current research datasets and construct a reliable dataset composed of 1000 malicious samples from NIST and 10,000 benign samples from GitHub for experimentation purposes. Experimental results show that compared with other machine learning models, the paths-attention method can achieve an accuracy rate of 90.25% and F1-score of 81.62%, while reducing the training time by half to 30 h.

Assessing the Architectural Compatibility of Urban Buildings With Passive Defense Principles in Eslamshahr City

Background and objective Urban security is one of the important challenges for urban managers and planners. In this regard, the passive defense approach in urbanization and residential constructions is considered by urban management as a way to cope with natural and man-made disasters and manage the crisis. The present study aims to develop a conceptual model for the architectural compatibility of buildings in Eslamshahr County, Tehran, Iran, with passive defense principles by assessing the compatible and non-compatible elements to provide essential strategies. Method This is a quantitative-qualitative study. The participants were 30 experts in the field of urban security in Eslamshahr. The data analysis was done using statistical tests such as binominal test, one sample T-test, exploratory factor analysis, and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) technique. Results The results indicated that the constructions in Eslamshahr are not so compatible with the passive defense principles; the level of compatibility was low to moderate. Conclusion The conceptual model was based on four main categories, including stimulating factors, developing factors, leading factors, and supportive factors. The relations between these categories were set according to the structure of a car wheel, which can be the basis for using stable and safe architecture in constructions.

Optimum Location for Backup Land Uses From the Perspective of Passive Defense in Urmia City

Background and objective This study aim is to find the optimal location form backup land uses from the perspective of passive defense in Urmia City. This is an applied, descriptive, and analytical study. Method Data collection was done using documentary data, a field study, and a questionnaire. Participants were 10 experts in this subject, who were selected purposefully. The network analysis process (ANP) was used to analyze the data. A dynamic and comprehensive model was prepared to locate fuel centers, fire stations, and hospitals from the perspective of passive defense. Results The findings showed that Ali Gorge neighborhood and a part of the Hezaran neighborhood were suitable places for fire stations. Ali Gorge neighborhood was a completely suitable location for fuel stations. Moreover, the neighborhoods of Ali Gorge and Haft-Asiab were completely suitable locations for the construction of hospitals. Conclusion It can be concluded that Ali Gorge neighborhood has more suitable conditions than other neighborhoods for locating backup land uses. Therefore, special attention should be paid to this neighborhood by the city managers.

Model Protection Scheme Against Distillation Attack in Internet of Vehicles

Aiming at the problems of model security and user data disclosure caused by the deep learning model in the Internet of Vehicles scenario, which can be stolen by malicious roadside units or base stations and other attackers through knowledge distillation and other techniques, this paper proposes a scheme to strengthen prevent against distillation. The scheme exploits the idea of model reinforcement such as model self-learning and attention mechanism to maximize the difference between the pre-trained model and the normal model without sacrificing performance. It also combines local differential privacy technology to reduce the effectiveness of model inversion attacks. Our experimental results on several datasets show that this method is effective for both standard and data-free knowledge distillation, and provides better model protection than passive defense.

GERMAN SPACE MILITARY POWER AND STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

Space military power refers to a state actor entering space freely, seeking the goals of benefiting national space interests, maintaining space security and the capabilities of fulfilling space infrastructure, and implementing space military policies. As the earliest “space power” in the world, Germany has been committed to continuous capacity building and policy planning in the space military field. This article seeks to provide a detailed overview of Germany’s unique historical background and evolutionary logic on space military power and strategic origin. Based on literature review and studies pertaining to space military strategy theories, this article reveals basic facts of Germany’s space military development under the “ideality - materialization” mutual constructed context, and illuminates the implications of theoretical changes in Germany’s space military strategy guidance from peaceful utilization and passive defense to effective control.

Improved strategy management for WDNs: Integrated prioritization SWOT QSPM (IPSQ) method – Application to passive defense

Drinking WDNs are one of the most significant infrastructures of the sustainable society. It will suffer damage during the operation, occurrences of inevitable disasters, terrorist attacks or war. Therefore, in this research, an improved strategy management approach for passive defense is presented that is called the Integrated Prioritization SWOT QSPM or IPSQ method. The clustering of the weights of affecting factors is determined using the ELECTRE TRI model, based on specific criteria. These weights are allocated according to the user's personal preferences, previously. The performance of proposed method was investigated. The necessary information was gathered and, a hydraulic analysis was conducted using WaterGEMS. The SWOT matrix is performed and top strategies shaped. Next, the priorities were illustrated using QSPM analysis. The results showed IPSQ method successfully headed us to planning priorities with least user interference and prevent possible mistakes. Clustering and prioritization processors can be linked to strategy management techniques simply and usefully. Outputs of hydraulic analysis are exceedingly useful to make best decisions for WDN. Government financial support for the implementation of online security and monitoring facilities (WO1 with STAS = 4.61), is known as the first priority of strategy for passive defense of the studied WDN.

Torsion of the vermiform process: clinical observations

Introduction. Torsion of the appendix is an extremely rare pathology in both adults and children. In this article, the authors report about two cases of appendix torsion which were revealed intraoperatively. Case description. Clinical observation 1: A 2-year-old boy was admitted to the surgical department with suspected acute appendicitis. On examination, the entire abdominal region was painful, the symptom of passive muscle defense was noted on the right. Ultrasound examination revealed changes in the appendix. Intraoperatively, torsion of the appendix was detected. Laparoscopic appendectomy was performed. The postoperative course was uneventful. Clinical observation 2: A 5-year-old boy was admitted to the surgical department with complaints of abdominal pain. Physical examination revealed the clinical picture of acute abdomen. At ultrasound examination, signs of altered appendix were seen. During diagnostic laparoscopy, torsion of the appendix was detected. Laparoscopic appendectomy was performed. The postoperative course was uneventful. Conclusion. The discussed two clinical cases indicate the necessity to include torsion of the appendix in the list of diagnoses for differential diagnostics in case of acute abdomen.

Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals the Response of the Bacterium Priestia Aryabhattai SK1-7 to Interactions and Dissolution with Potassium Feldspar.

Potassium feldspar (K2O·Al2O3·6SiO2) is considered to be the most important source of potash fertilizer. The use of microorganisms to dissolve potassium feldspar is a low-cost and environmentally friendly method. Priestia aryabhattai SK1-7 is a strain with a strong ability to dissolve potassium feldspar; it showed a faster pH drop and produced more acid in the medium with potassium feldspar as the insoluble potassium source than in the medium with K2HPO4 as the soluble potassium source. We speculated whether the cause of acid production was related to one or more stresses, such as mineral-induced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), the presence of aluminum in potassium feldspar, and cell membrane damage due to friction between SK1-7 and potassium feldspar, and analyzed it by transcriptome. The results revealed that the expression of the genes related to pyruvate metabolism, the two-component system, DNA repair, and oxidative stress pathways in strain SK1-7 was significantly upregulated in potassium feldspar medium. The subsequent validation experiments revealed that ROS were the stress faced by strain SK1-7 when interacting with potassium feldspar and led to a decrease in the total fatty acid content of SK1-7. In the face of ROS stress, strain SK1-7 upregulated the expression of the maeA-1 gene, allowing malic enzyme (ME2) to produce more pyruvate to be secreted outside the cell using malate as a substrate. Pyruvate is both a scavenger of external ROS and a gas pedal of dissolved potassium feldspar. IMPORTANCE Mineral-microbe interactions play important roles in the biogeochemical cycling of elements. Manipulating mineral-microbe interactions and optimizing the consequences of such interactions can be used to benefit society. It is necessary to explore the black hole of the mechanism of interaction between the two. In this study, it is revealed that P. aryabhattai SK1-7 faces mineral-induced ROS stress by upregulating a series of antioxidant genes as a passive defense, while overexpression of malic enzyme (ME2) secretes pyruvate to scavenge ROS as well as to increase feldspar dissolution, releasing K, Al, and Si into the medium. Our research provides a theoretical basis for improving the ability of microorganisms to weather minerals through genetic manipulation in the future.

The tarantula Grammostola anthracina uses type IV urticating setae in passive defence: evidence from its presence on the ootheca

New World tarantulas present a unique and conspicuous defensive mechanism: the release of urticating setae. The morphological differentiation of the types of setae suggests their distinct use, with two defensive mechanisms proposed: active defence against potential predators and passive defence against other arthropods, through the incorporation of setae into the moulting mat and/or ootheca. Tarantulas from Uruguay present three types of urticating setae with different morphologies (types I, III, and IV). It has been proposed that type I is used in passive defence and that type III in active defence; however, the use of type IV remains enigmatic. This study aims to elucidate the use of the type IV urticating setae. For this, we analysed oothecae of Grammostola anthracina, a species that presents type III and IV setae, quantifying them, and comparing the proportions between each type. Differences were found in the number of setae incorporated into the ootheca: type IV urticating setae are present in a higher proportion compared to type III, which suggests their use mainly in passive defence. We also tested the effects of type IV urticating setae incorporated on oothecae on phorid larvae and ants.

Evaluate the efficiency of contextual elements in reducing the vulnerability of urban historical fabrics based on passive defense principles

The main goal of passive defense is to create a set of principles and guidelines to increase human and financial security in times of crisis by immunization, and reduction of urban physical vulnerability. Therefore, the study and analysis of the historical context of a city as contextual architecture, based on the principles of passive defense, is crucial. This study uses descriptive-analytic research to study the physical, historical, and climatic characteristics of Yazd city as components of contextual architecture, using the DEA method to prioritize its important features based on passive defense principles. The results show that the criteria of “Compact texture”, “introversion”, “Narrow alleys and sunshade design in urban space” with the highest efficiency of 0.919, 0.865 and 0.824% were ranked first to third. The application of these principles makes it possible to firstly maintain the continuity of the past architectural form and secondly, prevent the city from harmful threats.

A combination of vaccination, early multiple-round overall screening, traditional Chinese medicine intervention and “treatment window forward” can reduce the proportion of severe and critical patients with SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant infection—Experience from the COVID-19 treatment center of Heilongjiang Province

A combination of vaccination, early multiple-round overall screening, traditional Chinese medicine intervention and “treatment window forward” can reduce the proportion of severe and critical patients with SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant infection—Experience from the COVID-19 treatment center of Heilongjiang Province

TZEAMM: An Efficient and Secure Active Measurement Method Based on TrustZone

With the rapid development of computer and communication technology, embedded systems are widely used in smart devices. The increasing connectivity of these systems and the difficulties in providing comprehensive security have made such devices vulnerable to malicious attacks. Passive defense technologies and traffic-based intrusion detection technologies are not fully effective against such attacks. Trusted execution environment (TEE) technology can ensure system security against unknown attacks to some extent. Most researchers use TrustZone to implement TEE. However, the problem is that the API interface of the TEE module which provides the service is not secure. Therefore, to actively defend against attacks, we developed a trusted computing active measurement architecture based on TrustZone. To overcome the serious problem that modules in the trusted execution environment need to be passively invoked to provide services, we have proposed an active measurement closed-loop immune mechanism. To reduce the trusted computing base and reduce the performance overhead, we removed certain functional modules from the trusted execution environment. In addition, based on this architecture, we developed a trust chain and dynamic measurement method to ensure the security of the target applications. We changed the traditional attack response method, which requires the entire system to be restarted after an attack, by developing a fallback mechanism that is more suitable for the system. Finally, we verified the effectiveness of the architecture by developing an attack model. Performance testing and analysis showed that the architecture reduced the impact of the security mechanisms on the system. In the future, we will extend our research to more fine-grained measurements.

An active defense model based on situational awareness and firewalls

SummaryWith the rapid development of the internet, cyberspace security issues have become increasingly prominent. The importance of constructing a cyberspace security system is self‐evident, but compared with attackers, defenders in cyberspace are in a castle‐like passive defense state in most cases. Therefore, building a reliable, accurate, timely, and active defense system is challenging. The key is to accurately focus on defense priorities, the anticipation of attackers who will likely succeed, and blocking attacks in a timely manner. In this article, we propose an active defense model based on the interaction of situational awareness and firewalls. First, by biasing the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of assets to get the score of assets, and using the Common Vulnerability Scoring System to assess the threat level of assets, we combine the two to determine the maximum system damage that the asset will suffer if it is lost, and then focus on defense. Meanwhile, log analysis of the network situational awareness platform can predict successful attackers, and then the linked firewall strategy can block these attacks in time before the attackers obtain attack gains. After that, we force the attackers to give up their attacks on the target by increasing the attack cost. We compared our model with iptables auto‐blocking and nginx auto‐blocking, and our model excelled them across the board in terms of comprehensiveness and false positive rate. The experimental results verify thar our active defense model proposed in this article can better reduce the defense cost and increase the attack cost, thus achieving the relatively defense goal.

Pain: Behavioural expression and response in an evolutionary framework.

An evolutionary perspective offers insights into the major public health problem of chronic (persistent) pain; behaviours associated with it perpetuate both pain and disability. Pain is motivating, and pain-related behaviours promote recovery by immediate active or passive defence; subsequent protection of wounds; suppression of competing responses; energy conservation; vigilance to threat; and learned avoidance of associated cues. When these persist beyond healing, as in chronic pain, they are disabling. In mammals, facial and bodily expression of pain is visible and identifiable by others, while social context, including conspecifics' responses, modulate pain. Studies of responses to pain emphasize onlooker empathy, but people with chronic pain report feeling disbelieved and stigmatized. Observers frequently discount others' pain, best understood in terms of cheater detection-alertness to free riders that underpins the capacity for prosocial behaviours. These dynamics occur both in everyday life and in clinical encounters, providing an account of the adaptiveness of pain-related behaviours.

Locating Health and Treatment Centers (Hospitals) with a Passive Defense Approach; Case Study: Babil City

The application of the principles and requirements of passive defense in urban spaces and facilities has attracted special attention in the country. Health care service centers are one of the centers that are directly involved in ensuring the health of the individual and society. Since the duty of the hospital is to respond to its users and to treat them, and this response should be as complete and useful as possible, it is believed that the proper assistance, facilitating the access of patients to treatment places depends on the correct location of the hospital and quick and timely access to these centers is very important and necessary during crises. In most cities, the lack of appropriate allocation of space and optimal placement of medical centers (hospitals) and the number of effective factors in the location of these centers has led to an increasing number of urban and citizen problems. This research seeks to optimally distribute the use of medical services in the city of Babol by observing the rules of passive defense. In this research, spatial data was prepared from digital and linear maps, and descriptive data was collected using statistics and field research and connected to the database. Then, for each of the influencing factors in the location of treatment centers (hospitals), related layers were prepared and the privacy of users was specified in each layer; the results of the integration of the information layers, the lands of the desired area for choosing the right place for healthcare use were divided into five categories: very excellent, excellent, good, average and poor, and finally the very excellent and excellent category lands for the construction of health-treatment centers were determined.

Information-Containing Adversarial Perturbation for Combating Facial Manipulation Systems

With the development of deep learning technology, the facial manipulation system has become powerful and easy to use. Such systems can modify the attributes of the given facial images, such as hair color, gender, and age. Malicious applications of such systems pose a serious threat to individuals’ privacy and reputation. Existing studies have proposed various approaches to protect images against facial manipulations. Passive defense methods aim to detect whether the face is real or fake, which works for posterior forensics but can not prevent malicious manipulation. Initiative defense methods protect images upfront by injecting adversarial perturbations into images to disrupt facial manipulation systems but can not identify whether the image is fake. To address the limitation of existing methods, we propose a novel two-tier protection method named Information-containing Adversarial Perturbation (IAP), which provides more comprehensive protection for facial images. We use an encoder to map a facial image and its identity message to a cross-model adversarial example which can disrupt multiple facial manipulation systems to achieve initiative protection. Recovering the message in adversarial examples with a decoder serves passive protection, contributing to provenance tracking and fake image detection. We introduce a feature-level correlation measurement that is more suitable to measure the difference between the facial images than the commonly used mean squared error. Moreover, we propose a spectral diffusion method to spread messages to different frequency channels, thereby improving the robustness of the message against facial manipulation. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our proposed IAP can recover the messages from the adversarial examples with high average accuracy and effectively disrupt the facial manipulation systems.

Towards Real-Time Warning and Defense Strategy AI Planning for Cyber Security Systems Aided by Security Ontology

Cyber security systems generally have the phenomena of passive defense and low-efficiency early warnings. Aiming at the above problems, this study proposes a real-time warning and plans an AI defense strategy for a cyber security system aided by a security ontology. First, we design a security defense ontology that integrates attack graphs, general purpose and domain-specific knowledge bases, and on this basis, we (1) develop an ontology-driven method of early warnings of real-time attacks, which supports non-intrusive scanning attack detection and (2) combine artificial intelligence planning and bounded rationality to recommend and automatically execute defense strategies in conventional defense scenarios. A case study has been performed, and the results indicate that: (1) the proposed method can quickly analyze network traffic data for real-time warnings, (2) the proposed method is highly feasible and has the ability to implement defense strategies autonomously, and (3) the proposed method performs the best, with a 5.4–11.4% increase in defense effectiveness against the state-of-the-art counterparts considering the APT29 attack. Overall, the proposed method holds the potential to increase the defense effectiveness against cyberattacks under high computing resource constraints.