Element Six (Ireland)

This research investigated the relationship between students’ skills and confusion in performing operations on integers among the Grade 8 students at a public high school in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, Philippines, for the school year 2024-2025 using a descriptive correlational research design. There were 187 Grade 8 learners who participated in the study, who were identified using simple random sampling. The data gathered were treated using frequency count, percentage, weighted mean, standard deviation and Pearson’s r. The results showed that most of the respondents have a satisfactory level of performance in performing operations on integers. On the other hand, the respondents have moderate confusion about the operations on integers. Interestingly, there was a significant relationship between respondents’ skills and confusion in integer operations. It is concluded that confusion towards fundamental rules and operations has a bearing on their skill level in integer operations. Hence, it is recommended that teachers utilize strategies that enhance students’ understanding of the basic rules of the operations on integers to minimize confusion in their application.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0610/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

We present a machine learning approach to improve the accuracy of summarized incident report visualizations for cyber security. We extend a recent incident report summarization method by training a Bayesian hierarchical model to optimize the summarization algorithm's weights. We also train a flat model and a neural network as alternative models to compare against our hierarchical model. Summaries generated by our hierarchical model achieve higher accuracy than the other methods, with an AUC 0.2 higher than the unweighted method while achieving comparable summarization size. We further demonstrate that visualizations of the hierarchical model's summaries are at least as useful the unweighted method's summaries, and possibly more useful.

Online services like Google provide a variety of application programming interfaces (APIs). These online APIs enable authenticated third-party services and applications (apps) to access a user's account data for tasks such as single sign-on (SSO), calendar integration, and sending email on behalf of the user, among others. Despite their prevalence, API access could pose significant privacy and security risks, where a third-party could have unexpected privileges to a user's account. To gauge users' perceptions and concerns regarding third-party apps that integrate with online APIs, we performed a multi-part online survey of Google users. First, we asked n = 432 participants to recall if and when they allowed third-party access to their Google account: 89% recalled using at least one SSO and 52% remembered at least one third-party app. In the second survey, we re-recruited n = 214 participants to ask about specific apps and SSOs they've authorized on their own Google accounts. We collected in-the-wild data about users' actual SSOs and authorized apps: 86% used Google SSO on at least one service, and 67% had at least one third-party app authorized. After examining their apps and SSOs, participants expressed the most concern about access to personal information like email addresses and other publicly shared info. However, participants were less concerned with broader -- and perhaps more invasive -- access to calendars, emails, or cloud storage (as needed by third-party apps). This discrepancy may be due in part to trust transference to apps that integrate with Google, forming an implied partnership. Our results suggest opportunities for design improvements to the current third-party management tools offered by Google; for example, tracking recent access, automatically revoking access due to app disuse, and providing permission controls.

Cyber security logs and incident reports describe a narrative, but in practice analysts view the data in tables where it can be difficult to follow the narrative. Narrative visualizations are useful, but common examples use a summarized narrative instead of the full story's narrative; it is unclear how to automatically generate these summaries. This paper presents (1) a narrative summarization algorithm to reduce the size and complexity of cyber security narratives with a user-customizable summarization level, and (2) a narrative visualization tailored for incident reports and network logs. An evaluation on real incident reports shows that the summarization algorithm reduces false positives and improves average precision by 41% while reducing average incident report size up to 79%. Together, the visualization and summarization algorithm generate compact representations of cyber narratives that earned praise from a SOC analyst. We further demonstrate that the summarization algorithm can apply to other types of dynamic graphs by automatically generating a summary of the Les Misérables character interaction graph. We find that the list of main characters in the automatically generated summary has substantial agreement with human-generated summaries. A version of this paper, data, and code is freely available at https://osf.io/ekzbp/.

Ultra-short pulse laser machining has been applied to the polishing of polycrystalline diamond (PCD) wafers in order to generate a smooth surface finish and reduce mechanical polishing time. Past studies were first carried out with a 5W laser highlighting the difference in ablation rates between PCD grades and the possible graphitization of diamond on the surface of micrometric PCD grades over a fluence threshold. Some upscaling work was undertaken at 80W with a 3-pulse burst reducing the Sa of a micrometric PCD grade lapped surface by 50% with a volume removal rate double that of the conventional mechanical polishing technique. From these previous base investigations, an ultra-short pulse laser delivering an average power of 1kW at 500fs via state-of-the-art thin disk multi-pass amplification is implemented here to achieve a higher ablation rate for high throughput processing. This is the first time that such an average power is applied on polycrystalline diamond in the ultra-short pulse regime. A burst mode is also implemented which is demonstrated to reduce the Sa by 10% and 55% on fine and coarse grade surfaces respectively compared to single pulse processing. From 80W to 1kW, the ablation rate is increased by a factor of 70 on micrometric PCD grades while the Sa of the initial lapped surface is reduced by 14% without any graphitization of the diamond structure. However, no improvement of the Sa is performed on the initial surface of coarser grades due to the formation of cavities (~5μm wide) potentially caused by the spallation of diamond grains.

The International Society of Pediatric Oncology established baseline standards for pediatric oncology nursing; limited evidence is available to predict hospitals' capacity to meet these standards internationally. The aims of this study were to (1) determine the proportion of hospitals that met, partially met or did not meet baseline standards for pediatric oncology nursing and (2) identify predictors of hospitals' nonachievement of baseline standards for pediatric oncology nursing. A secondary analysis of International Society of Pediatric Oncology web-based survey data of baseline nursing standards was conducted. Predictor variables were derived from surveyed hospital characteristics and external data sources. Multivariable parsimonious logistic regression models identified predictors of hospitals' nonachievement of each standard. Nurses from 101 hospitals across 54 countries completed the survey; 12% to 66% of hospitals reported meeting each of 6 baseline standards. Predictors of nonachievement of standards included low current health expenditure as percentage of gross domestic product, World Health Organization Region of Africa, United Nations "developing or transition" country classification, countries with fewer than 3 nurses/midwives per 1000 population, and hospitals without bone marrow transplant and/or intensive care units. Hospitals with characteristics predictive of inability to meet baseline standards will likely require greater capacity-building support and advocacy to improve the quality of nursing care. Findings from this study highlight internal and external factors that challenge the delivery of high-quality pediatric oncology nursing care internationally.

The South Australian Workers Compensation Tribunal has found that stress contributed to a man's colorectal cancer. The medical evidence for this is very limited, and the case highlights the difference between scientific and legal proof.

Wood based composite materials are used extensively for interior and exterior construction applications. These materials are typically pressed into sheet form and then machined to the required size and profile. Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) is the cutting tool material increasingly used to machine these materials. The major benefit of using PCD is extended tool life resulting from its superior properties over traditional tool materials.