The new innovators in the footsteps of the coronavirus

This chapter explores the regeneration of minds through the light of past experiences and with regard to the many innovative examples that are already emerging. Innovation is currently seen as positive and indispensable in companies, where all employees are now expected to be innovators. The innovator is basically an explorer, a discoverer like Christopher Columbus. Corporate hacking is the act of acting outside the rules of the company, more like a "rebel" and less like a "good soldier". The lockdown period was conducive, on the one hand, to the natural emergence of fears and, on the other hand, to the emergence of a collective and of group thinking. New innovators will hybridize existing models and create new agile and sustainable methods with reference to the future. Going all digital will not be enough, neither will going all local. The blue economy is, in this respect, a very inspiring idea. © ISTE Ltd 2022.

Multiversal Methods in Observational Studies: The Case of COVID-19

In the present study, 13 covariates have been selected as potentially associated with 3 metrics of the spread of COVID-19 in 20 European countries. Robustness of the linear correlations between 10 of the 13 covariates as main regressors and the 3 COVID-19 metrics as dependent variables have been tested through a methodology for sensitivity analysis that falls under the name of "Multiverse”. Under this methodology, thousands of alternative estimates are generated by a single hypothesis of regression. The capacity of identification of a robust causal claim for the 10 variables has been measured through 3 indicators over a Janus Confusion Matrix, which is a confusion matrix that assumes the likelihood to observe a True claim as the ratio between the absolute difference of estimates with a different sign and the total of estimates. This methodology provides the opportunity to evaluate the outcomes of a shift from the common level of significance to the alternative. According to the results of the study, in the dataset the benefits of the shifts come at a very high cost in terms of false negatives. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Cybercompetitions: A survey of competitions, tools, and systems to support cybersecurity education.

Over the last decade, industry and academia have worked towards raising students' interests in cybersecurity through game-like competitions to fill a shortfall of cybersecurity professionals. Rising interest in video games in combination with gamification techniques make learning fun, easy, and addictive. It is crucial that cybersecurity curricula enhance and expose cybersecurity education to a diversified student body to meet workforce demands. Gamification through cybercompetitions is one method to achieve that. With a vast list of options for competition type, focus areas, learning outcomes, and participant experience levels we need to systematize knowledge of attributes that ameliorate cybercompetitions. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and global lock-downs, competition hosts scrambled to move platforms from local to online infrastructure due to poor interoperability between competition software. We derive a list of takeaways including the lack of interoperability between state-of-the-art competition systems, breaking the high knowledge barrier to participate, addressing competition type diversity, then suggest potential solutions and research questions moving forward. Our paper aims to systematize cybersecurity, access control, and programming competitions by surveying the history of these events. We explore the types of competitions that have been hosted and categorize them based on focus areas related to the InfoSEC Color Wheel. We then explore state-of-the-art technologies that enable these types of competitions, and finally, present our takeaways.

Hafnia, a case of translocated septicemia

Case Report: Hafnia alvei, a member of the Enterococcus family, is a gram-negative anaerobe native to the gastrointestinal tract. While very rarely pathogenic, it has historically been associated with gastroenteritis, meningitis, bacteremia, pneumonia, and nosocomial wound infections. Here we report a non-fatal case of Hafnia-septicemia following recent ERCP for Choledocholithiasis. Case Report: 73-year-old Caucasian male with Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease Stage 5, diabetes mellitus and hypertension who presented to the Emergency Department (ED) with a chief complaint of chills and fevers as well as worsening dry hacking cough and intermittent shortness of breath. Of note, patient had presented to the ED the previous day with abdominal pain and nausea after undergoing ERCP for Choledocholithiasis from day prior. Computed tomography (CT) imaging from 1st ED visit showed no acute signs of pancreatitis, however patient was noted to have bibasilar opacities. Lipase was normal at 39. Other lab work was significant for leukocytosis to 11 000. Patient's abdominal pain and nausea resolved while in the ED, he also denied shortness of breath and was breathing comfortably on room air. He was discharged from the ED with 7-day course of Azithromycin for community acquired pneumonia. On return visit next day, patient reported new onset shortness of breath and fevers. Physical exam was remarkable for hypoxia requiring 2 liters nasal cannula, and tachycardia to 104. Patient tested negative for Covid -19. Patient admitted for acute hypoxic respiratory failure and sepsis secondary to presumed bacterial pneumonia. Patient was started on IV Vancomycin and Cefepime and required oxygen support for hypoxia. He showed marked improvement by day two of hospitalization and was weaned off oxygen. Admission Blood cultures were positive for gram negative rods after 24 hours and subsequently grew Hafnia that was pan sensitive except to Ampicillin + Sulbactam. Repeat blood cultureswere negative 24 hours later. Patient was deemed medically stable on day 3 of admission and discharged on PO Levofloxacin for 10-day course for Hafnia septicemia and pneumonia. Discussion(s): When considering the etiology of septicemia especially in the context of a recent gastrointestinal procedure, translocation of anaerobic bacteria should be on the differential. Hafnia alvei is a rare pathologic cause of septicemia with only a handful of reported cases upon literature review. Copyright © 2023 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation.

The Effect of COVID-19 Restrictions on Routine Activities and Online Crime.

Objectives: Routine activity theory suggests that levels of crime are affected by peoples' activity patterns. Here, we examine if, through their impact on people's on- and off-line activities, COVID-19 restriction affected fraud committed on- and off-line during the pandemic. Our expectation was that levels of online offending would closely follow changes to mobility and online activity-with crime increasing as restrictions were imposed (and online activity increased) and declining as they were relaxed. For doorstep fraud, which has a different opportunity structure, our expectation was that the reverse would be true. Method: COVID-19 restrictions systematically disrupted people's activity patterns, creating quasi-experimental conditions well-suited to testing the effects of "interventions" on crime. We exploit those conditions using ARIMA time series models and UK data for online shopping fraud, hacking, doorstep fraud, online sales, and mobility to test hypotheses. Doorstep fraud is modelled as a non-equivalent dependent variable, allowing us to test whether findings were selective and in line with theoretical expectations. Results: After controlling for other factors, levels of crime committed online were positively associated with monthly variation in online activities and negatively associated with monthly variation in mobility. In contrast, and as expected, monthly variation in doorstep fraud was positively associated with changes in mobility. Conclusions: We find evidence consistent with routine activity theory, suggesting that disruptions to people's daily activity patterns affect levels of crime committed both on- and off-line. The theoretical implications of the findings, and the need to develop a better evidence base about what works to reduce online crime, are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10940-022-09564-7.

Growth Communication Strategies in the Digital Age

This article analyzes growth strategies in the context of digital transformation in all political, social, and economic scopes that were accelerated by the pandemic. The article also focuses on the specific case of digital native brands which have emerged in a disruptive way. The study was carried out by using electronic surveys from April 2020 to November 2021 of 50 professionals in leading technology companies and startups. The study takes into account the results obtained in research carried out during the last 8 years by combining both the methods of in-depth interviews and documentary analysis in tracking the strategies of technology companies. The results show that growth strategies in digital economy are focused on decision making based on data combined with creative actions such as digital content, influencer marketing, media, events, and newsjacking. This growth strategy is applicable to all areas, especially politics.

Product hacking as a systematic intervention: towards new strategies and platforms in design education.

This paper is mainly about how product hacking can be categorized and implemented in a systematic way in design education. The theoretical or analytical part of the project is based on a study in which a great number of hacking projects are reviewed and categorized found in popular DIY platforms. The implementation or synthesis part of the research is a design project held in an industrial design department with freshman design students based on the categorization of function proposed, which are namely; enhance, change and add function. In this project students are required to make three kinds of interventions on functions of existing products, also share their projects in the selected platform (www.instructables.com), so that other people can find, criticize, develop, or apply it by using the instructions given. Sharing in platforms like these creates a connection between the analytical and synthetic phases of the paper, and also makes it different from other classical projects confined to a closed studio atmosphere.This paper also seeks for the possibility of fresh perspectives on issues like sustainability, ready-made and open source design by engaging students in an intervention-based design process where they look for formulating their designs in a methodological way.One other aspect of the project was the idea that it has the potential to create an advantage or value for the time and context it was given, that is when the COVID-19 has started to influence our lives deeply.

CYBER SECURITY IN THE AGE OF COVID-19: A TIMELINE AND ANALYSIS OF CYBER-CRIME AND CYBER-ATTACKS DURING THE PANDEMIC

The entire world has been impacted by Covid-19, which has forced the nations to undergo lockdowns, which have opened the new horizons of virtual learning and work from home culture. Though virtual learning and online meetings were available prior to the lockdowns, use of these platforms have intensified. There is a lack of awareness among many in the public concerning the perils of using these platforms which makes them susceptible to cyber-crime attacks phishing, sexual or verbal abuse, eve teasing etc. Lockdowns have provided cyber criminals with new criminal opportunities and evidence shows that there has been a rampant increase in the number of cyber-crimes during this period. Public lack of awareness has led to innocent people falling prey in the hands of attackers. Since the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns came as a surprise, public and private authorities lacked the opportunity to make appropriate arrangements for training people and making these platforms secure. There is no question that if these platforms are made secure, then they will prove to be as an asset to the society but much work must be done to achieve the goal of complete cyber security.

Video injection attacks on remote digital identity verification solution using face recognition

The COVID 19 pandemic has fuelled the acceleration of the use of remote services as, for example, video conferences or digital identity verification solutions. Due to videoconferences or social medias, attackers have access to rich biometric sources and therefore make it possible to carry out high quality attacks such as videos of deepfakes, or morphing, against face recognition system. These kind of video attacks allow the attacker to fool face recognition even when these systems are secured by challenge-based liveness detection by presenting them. In order to prevent against these kind of attacks, adding an artefact detection to these systems could be a good solution. However, we will see in this paper that the development of remote digital identity verification tools on mobile application or on a computer (through a web app) opens the path to video injection attacks which bypass all of these security systems, namely a face recognition system secured with both challenge-based liveness detection and artefact detection. © by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics.

Academic cheating: Coronavirus pandemic negative impact on higher education

The phenomenon of academic cheating/e-cheating is not new, but due to the massive growth of higher education and development of ICT in recent years, the problem is still relevant for the higher education system. In the context of distance learning, during the pandemic, academic cheating/echeating among university students has significantly increased, the range of forms of IT manifestation has expanded, and there is also a tendency to increase students' tolerance for these practices in the learning process. The probability that cheating/e-cheating is widely used by students during their studies raises doubts about the students ' academic performance, the quality of training for professional activities, devalues investments into the education by students and their families, undermines the image of the educational institution, etc.The aim of the study is to work out mechanisms (approaches, tools and methods) to prevent the decline in the quality of education and the validity of the assessment of knowledge caused by academic cheating/e-cheating of students, including in the short-and long-term pandemic consequences. Methodology. The paper uses the analysis of empirical and theoretical studies of foreign and Russian authors devoted to the study of the factors of unfair behavior of students. The empirical basis of the study is the data of surveys of students and teachers of Russian universities. As a result of the study, it was found that academic cheating/e-cheating among students increased in the context of the pandemic;factors that encourage students to resort to unfair means to achieve educational goals were identified. The mechanisms of effective measures to prevent student cheating/echeating are proposed, based on both the individual (personal) characteristics of students and the features (characteristics) of the educational environment, including the role of the teacher, fellow students, the educational environment, software and technical support, etc. © 2021, National Defence University - Carol I Printing House. All rights reserved.

Engaging Engineering Students in Public Health Responses to Disease Outbreaks Through Hackathons

Contribution: Although engineering hackathon events are common, this is one of the first reports of such an event used for the purpose of teaching engineering students about public health concepts. Results from this study suggest that hackathons are an effective format for teaching topics that are not core to the engineering discipline in a short period of time. Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the essential role that computer scientists and engineers have in controlling disease outbreaks. However, engineering programs generally do not provide training on public health issues. Thus, there is a critical need to develop innovative and engaging ways to educate engineering students about public health without interfering with required discipline-specific content. Intended Outcomes: Hackathons, short-term events, held outside of the classroom, can provide an engaging and effective method for increasing the interest and knowledge of engineering students in disease outbreaks. In this article, the effectiveness of a hack day in increasing the interest and knowledge of engineering students in disease outbreaks is assessed. Application Design: One-hundred-six undergraduate students, 30 of whom were engineering majors, participated in a multidisciplinary disease focused hackathon. Student learning and engagement during the hackathon was assessed for the 30 engineering students that participated through pre- and post-event surveys. Findings: The results indicated that the hackathon increased both content knowledge and engagement of engineering students in public health issues. Additionally, students gained an increased understanding of public health professions and how they can contribute to disease tracking, prevention, and treatment. Therefore, hackathons are an effective and efficient tool for teaching engineering students about topics outside of their discipline.

When open source design is vital: critical making of DIY healthcare equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical devices needed during the COVID-19 pandemic were widely reported in early 2020. In response, civic DIY volunteers explored how they could produce the required equipment. Members of communities such as hacker- and makerspaces employed their skills and tools to manufacture, for example, face shields and masks. The article discusses these civic innovation practices and their broader social implications by relating them to critical making theory. Methodologically, it is based on a digital ethnography approach, focusing on hacker and maker communities in the UK. Communities' DIY initiatives display characteristics of critical making and 'craftivism', as they assessed and counteracted politicised healthcare supply shortages. It is argued that their manufacturing activities during the COVID pandemic relate to UK austerity politics' effects on healthcare and government failure to ensure medical crisis supplies. Facilitated by open source design, communities' innovation enabled healthcare emergency equipment. At the same time, their DIY manufacturing raises practical as well as ethical issues concerning, among other things, efficacy and safety of use.

How does a (Smart) Age-Friendly Ecosystem Look in a Post-Pandemic Society?

COVID-19 has impacted not only the health of citizens, but also the various factors that make up our society, living environments, and ecosystems. This pandemic has shown that future living will need to be agile and flexible to adapt to the various changes in needs of societal populations. Digital technology has played an integral role during COVID-19, assisting various sectors of the community, and demonstrating that smart cities can provide opportunities to respond to many future societal challenges. In the decades ahead, the rise in aging populations will be one of these challenges, and one in which the needs and requirements between demographic cohorts will vary greatly. Although we need to create future smart age-friendly ecosystems to meet these needs, technology still does not feature in the WHO eight domains of an age-friendly city. This paper extends upon Marston and van Hoof's 'Smart Age-friendly Ecosystem' (SAfE) framework, and explores how digital technology, design hacking, and research approaches can be used to understand a smart age-friendly ecosystem in a post-pandemic society. By exploring a series of case studies and using real-life scenarios from the standpoint of COVID-19, we propose the 'Concept of Age-friendly Smart Ecologies (CASE)' framework. We provide an insight into a myriad of contemporary multi-disciplinary research, which are capable to initiate discussions and bring various actors together with a positive impact on future planning and development of age-friendly ecosystems. The strengths and limitations of this framework are outlined, with advantages evident in the opportunity for towns, regions/counties, provinces, and states to take an agile approach and work together in adopting and implement improvements for the greater benefits of residents and citizens.