AndroMalPack: enhancing the ML-based malware classification by detection and removal of repacked apps for Android systems.

Due to the widespread usage of Android smartphones in the present era, Android malware has become a grave security concern. The research community relies on publicly available datasets to keep pace with evolving malware. However, a plethora of apps in those datasets are mere clones of previously identified malware. The reason is that instead of creating novel versions, malware authors generally repack existing malicious applications to create malware clones with minimal effort and expense. This paper investigates three benchmark Android malware datasets to quantify repacked malware using package names-based similarity. We consider 5560 apps from the Drebin dataset, 24,533 apps from the AMD and 695,470 apps from the AndroZoo dataset for analysis. Our analysis reveals that 52.3% apps in Drebin, 29.8% apps in the AMD and 42.3% apps in the AndroZoo dataset are repacked malware. Furthermore, we present AndroMalPack, an Android malware detector trained on clones-free datasets and optimized using Nature-inspired algorithms. Although trained on a reduced version of datasets, AndroMalPack classifies novel and repacked malware with a remarkable detection accuracy of up to 98.2% and meagre false-positive rates. Finally, we publish a dataset of cloned apps in Drebin, AMD, and AndrooZoo to foster research in the repacked malware analysis domain.

Efficacy and Safety of Surgical Treatments for Neurogenic Stress Urinary Incontinence in Adults: A Systematic Review.

CONTEXT: Controversy still exists regarding the balance of benefits and harms for the different surgical options for neurogenic stress urinary incontinence (N-SUI). OBJECTIVE: To identify which surgical option for N-SUI offers the highest cure rate and best safety without compromising urinary tract function and bladder management. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: A systematic review was performed under the auspices of the European Association of Urology Guidelines Office and the European Association of Urology Neuro-Urology Guidelines Panel according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: A total of 32 studies were included. Overall, 852 neurourological patients were surgically treated for N-SUI. The treatment offered most often (13/32 studies) was an artificial urinary sphincter (AUS; 49%, 416/852) and was associated with a need for reintervention in one-third of patients. More than 200 surgical revisions were described. Overall, 146/852 patients (17%) received concomitant bladder augmentation, mainly during placement of an AUS (42%, 62/146) or autologous sling (34% of women and 14% of men). Following pubovaginal sling placement, dryness was achieved in 83% of cases. A significant improvement in N-SUI was observed in 87% (82/94) of women following placement of a synthetic midurethral sling. Efficacy after insertion of an adjustable continence therapy device (ACT 40%, proACT 60%) was reported for 38/128 cases (30%). The cure rate for bulking agents was 35% (9/25) according to 2/32 studies, mainly among men (90%). The risk of bias was highly relevant. Baseline and postoperative cystometry were missing in 13 and 28 studies, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The evidence is mainly reported in retrospective studies. More than one intervention is often required to achieve continence because of coexisting neurogenic detrusor overactivity, low compliance, or the onset of complications in the medium and long term. Urodynamic data are needed to better clarify the success of N-SUI treatment with the different techniques. PATIENT SUMMARY: Our review shows that insertion of an artificial urinary sphincter for urinary incontinence is effective but is highly associated with a need for repeat surgery. Other surgical options may have lower continence rates or a risk of requiring intermittent catheterization, which patients should be informed about before deciding on surgery for their incontinence.

Differences in Tetracycline Antibiotic Resistance Genes and Microbial Community Structure During Aerobic Composting and Anaerobic Digestion.

Antibiotics are widely added to swine forage and are the main reason for the environmental accumulation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in swine manure-dwelling microorganisms. Aerobic composting (AC) and anaerobic digestion (AD) are efficient methods for converting swine manure to bio-fertilizer while degrading residual antibiotics. However, the influence of these methods on ARG accumulation and the difference in their efficiency have rarely been investigated. In this study, we explored the variations in four tetracycline antibiotics (TCs) and their associated ARGs and in microbial communities after AC and AD treatment. After full-scale manure AC and AD, the four TCs were removed effectively. AD had a higher TC removal efficiency than AC and a slower rate of TC-associated ARG accumulation. In addition, the community structure was more stable in the AC and AD manures than in untreated manure, and the relationship among microbial species also evolved into competition from mutualism after both AC and AD treatment. It was also speculated that the genera Acholeplasma and Arthrobacter were the possible hosts of tetO, tetW, and tetQ; the shift in the prokaryotic community composition and the alleviation of selective pressure by TC degradation led to decreased relative abundance of ARGs in AD- and AC-treated manure.

Variations in phyllosphere microbial community along with the development of angular leaf-spot of cucumber.

The phyllosphere is colonized by a wide variety of microorganisms including epiphytes, plant-pathogenic fungus, bacteria, as well as human or animal pathogens. However, little is known about how microbial community composition changes with the development of angular leaf-spot of cucumber. Here, 18 mixed samples were collected based on the lesion coverage rate (LCR) of angular leaf-spot of cucumber from three disease severity groups (DM1: symptomatic-mild, DM2: symptomatic-moderate, DM3: symptomatic-severe). In our study, the microbial community structure and diversity were examined by Illumina MiSeq sequencing. A significant differences was observed in α diversity and community structure among three disease severity groups. The phyllosphere microbiota was observed to be dominated by bacterial populations from Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes, as well as fungal species from Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. In addition, some plant-specific microbe such as Sphingomonas, Methylobacterium, Pseudomonas, and Alternaria showed significant changes in their relative abundance of population. The LCR was correlated negatively with Sphingomonas, Methylobacterium, Quadrisphaera, and Lactobacillus, whereas correlated positively with Pseudomonas and Kineococcus (p < 0.05). The LCR was negatively correlated with Alternaria and Arthrinium of the fungal communities (p < 0.05). Molecular ecological networks of the microbial communities were constructed to show the interactions among the OTUs. Our current results indicated that the competitive relationships among species were broken with the development of angular leaf-spot of cucumber. The microbial community composition changed over the development of angular leaf-spot of cucumber. The result of molecular ecological networks indicated that the overall bacterial community tends toward mutualism from the competition. The development of angular leaf-spot of cucumber affected the ecosystem functioning by disrupting the stability of the microbial community network. This work will help us to understand the host plant-specific microbial community structures and shows how these communities change throughout the development of angular leaf-spot of cucumber.