Towards a PHP webshell taxonomy using deobfuscation-assisted similarity analysis
- Authors: Wrench, Peter M , Irwin, Barry V W
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/429560 , vital:72622 , 10.1109/ISSA.2015.7335066
- Description: The abundance of PHP-based Remote Access Trojans (or web shells) found in the wild has led malware researchers to develop systems capable of tracking and analysing these shells. In the past, such shells were ably classified using signature matching, a process that is currently unable to cope with the sheer volume and variety of web-based malware in circulation. Although a large percentage of newly-created webshell software incorporates portions of code derived from seminal shells such as c99 and r57, they are able to disguise this by making extensive use of obfuscation techniques intended to frustrate any attempts to dissect or reverse engineer the code. This paper presents an approach to shell classification and analysis (based on similarity to a body of known malware) in an attempt to create a comprehensive taxonomy of PHP-based web shells. Several different measures of similarity were used in conjunction with clustering algorithms and visualisation techniques in order to achieve this. Furthermore, an auxiliary component capable of syntactically deobfuscating PHP code is described. This was employed to reverse idiomatic obfuscation constructs used by software authors. It was found that this deobfuscation dramatically increased the observed levels of similarity by exposing additional code for analysis.
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Towards assessing impacts of alien plant infestations on river systems in the Southern Cape using cost-benefit analyses
- Authors: Rivers-Moore, Nick A , Dallas, Helen , Barendse, Jaco , de Moor, Ferdy
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/438336 , vital:73452 , ISBN 978-1-4312-0661-2 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2264.pdf
- Description: Ecosystem resilience is key to the provision of dependable ecosystem goods and services, and it is generally accepted that ecosystem diversity helps to maintain sys-tem resilience. It is therefore reasonable to postulate that changes to the variables that drive species patterns will result in changes to ecosystem community structure and consequently negatively impact on system resilience. Alien vegetation in the riparian zone can impact on water temperatures, flow patterns, degree of shading, channel modification, and changes to natural sediment loads. Climate change is likely to exacerbate the problem both directly through its amplification of thermal extremes in aquatic systems, and indirectly through its impacts on dispersal patterns of alien invasive vegetation.
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Transformative processes in environmental education: A case study
- Authors: Fox, Helen , Palmer, Carolyn G , O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387323 , vital:68225 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/137680"
- Description: This paper presents a case study on the severely degraded Boksburg Lake’s (Gauteng, South Africa) social–ecological system, and on an environmental-education initiative that aimed to support the lake’s transformation with a view to its improved social and ecological well-being. In this case study, three key characteristics of the initiative which appeared to support the transformative process are discussed, namely: 1. Learning was aligned with the local social–ecological context; 2. Human-to-human and human-to-ecological connections were encouraged; and 3. The youth played a key role in initiating and effecting transformation.
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Transformative, transgressive social learning: Rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Wals, Arjen E J , Kronlid, David O , McGarry, Dylan K
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372794 , vital:66623 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.07.018"
- Description: The nature of the sustainability challenges currently at hand is such that dominant pedagogies and forms of learning that characterize higher education need to be reconsidered to enable students and staff to deal with accelerating change, increasing complexity, contested knowledge claims and inevitable uncertainty. In this contribution we identified four streams of emerging transformative, transgressive learning research and praxis in the sustainability sciences that appear generative of a higher education pedagogy that appears more responsive to the key challenges of our time: (1) reflexive social learning and capabilities theory, (2) critical phenomenology, (3) socio-cultural and cultural historical activity theory, and (4) new social movement, postcolonial and decolonisation theory. The paper critiques the current tendency in sustainability science and learning to rely on resilience and adaptive capacity building and argues that in order to break with maladaptive resilience of unsustainable systems it is essential to strengthen transgressive learning and disruptive capacity-building.
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Transformative, transgressive social learning: Rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Wals, Arjen E , Kronlid, David O , McGarry, Dylan K
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392190 , vital:68729 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.07.018"
- Description: The nature of the sustainability challenges currently at hand is such that dominant pedagogies and forms of learning that characterize higher education need to be reconsidered to enable students and staff to deal with accelerating change, increasing complexity, contested knowledge claims and inevitable uncertainty. In this contribution we identified four streams of emerging transformative, transgressive learning research and praxis in the sustainability sciences that appear generative of a higher education pedagogy that appears more responsive to the key challenges of our time: (1) reflexive social learning and capabilities theory, (2) critical phenomenology, (3) socio-cultural and cultural historical activity theory, and (4) new social movement, postcolonial and decolonisation theory. The paper critiques the current tendency in sustainability science and learning to rely on resilience and adaptive capacity building and argues that in order to break with maladaptive resilience of unsustainable systems it is essential to strengthen transgressive learning and disruptive capacity-building.
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Trophic relationships of hake (Merluccius capensis and M. paradoxus) and sharks (Centrophorus squamosus, Deania calcea and D. profundorum) in the Northern (Namibia) Benguela Current region
- Authors: Iitembu, Johannes A , Richoux, Nicole B
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/443830 , vital:74157 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC183122
- Description: The trophic relationships of two hake species (Merluccius capensis and M. paradoxus) and three shark species (Centrophorus squamosus, Deania calcea and D. profundorum) were investigated using nitrogen and carbon stable isotope signatures (15N and 13C) of their muscle tissues. The sharks were more enriched in 15N than the hake, an indication of the apex predator status of sharks. Among the sharks considered, C. squamosus occupied the highest trophic level and fed primarily on benthic prey. The two species of shark from the genus Deania were not different based on 15N or 13C, so they had similar diets. The 13C signatures indicated that M. capensis and sharks fed on prey derived from similar basal resources. However, there was a significant difference in 13C between M. paradoxus and all other species examined, suggesting that they occupied different feeding niches. Isotope-based populationmetrics showed narrower trophic ranges in sharks than M. capensis. Carbon and nitrogen ranges indicated that hake fed on a more diverse pool of carbon sources and had generally more enhanced trophic diversity in their feeding patterns than sharks. Among the species considered, C. squamosus occupied a unique isotopic space. Our results supported the hypothesis there are trophic overlaps among these species, but some interesting differentiation was revealed.
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Trypanosoma brucei J protein 2 is a stress inducible and essential Hsp40
- Authors: Ludewig, Michael H , Boshoff, Aileen , Horn, David , Blatch, Gregory L
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431798 , vital:72804 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocel.2014.12.016"
- Description: Hsp40 proteins (also known as DnaJ or J proteins) serve as co-chaperones for Hsp70, but also display evidence of independent chaperone function. Furthermore, certain Hsp40s have been shown to be stress-inducible and essential. Trypanosomatids display a remarkable diversification of Hsp40 proteins, with numerous distinct Hsp40-like proteins encoded in the Trypanosoma brucei genome. This study investigated the role of one of the six T. brucei Type I Hsp40s, T. brucei J protein 2 (Tbj2). We found that Tbj2 was heat stress-inducible, and that knockdown using RNA interference resulted in a severe growth defect under normal growth temperatures. Furthermore, a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-Tbj2 fusion protein was found to be localized to the cytosol of T. brucei. Taken together, these data suggest that Tbj2 is not functionally equivalent to the other five Type I Hsp40s, and that it is an essential, cytosolic, and stress-inducible chaperone, potentially playing an important role in protein biogenesis in T. brucei.
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Uncle Noodle
- Authors: Krueger, Anton
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229676 , vital:49699 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC176906"
- Description: “Ah,” he seemed surprised to see me, “Now you find out who really cares...” His kidneys hadn‟t been on the job in months, and with the machines failing, his hands were fattening into stubby yellow fingers, as the waste shored up inside of him. I touched his arm, and we joked about the broad blunt strokes of the casiotone the old dame played for the lunch-eaters next door. Uncle Noodle had always been my favourite. In a world where adults were always certain, ready to disdain and judge and pass verdict – I loved it that he was indecisive, insecure, unsure. Often wretched, often defeated. His heart had chasmed in the wake of his wife‟s leaving, finally dividing him from all his hopes, collapsing his dignity destroying his happiness machinery.
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Understanding and modelling surface water-groundwater interactions
- Authors: Tanner, Jane L , Hughes, Denis A
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/438220 , vital:73444 , ISBN 978-1-4312-0630-8 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2056%20-2-14.pdf
- Description: The main objective of the total project was to contribute to the incorpo-ration of uncertainty assessments in practical water resource decision making in South Africa. The companion report addresses more general issues of uncertainty and hydrological modelling, while this report con-centrates on the uncertainties in both understanding and modelling the interactions between surface water and groundwater. Since groundwa-ter routines were added into the widely used Pitman model in the early 2000s by both Prof Hughes and Mr Karim Sami, the approaches have come under a great deal of criticism mainly from the geohydrological community of specialists within South Africa. Arguably, a great deal of this criticism is based on misunderstandings of the intention of adding groundwater routines into an existing surface water model. It was stated quite clearly at the time that this approach was not seen as a replace-ment for existing detailed numerical approaches to groundwater model-ling. The intention was to create a scientific and practical tool that could be used to simulate the complete hydrological cycle at the catchment scale so that integrated water resources decision making could be better supported.
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Variation in urease and β-glucosidase activities with soil depth and root density in a ‘Cripp's Pink’/M7 apple orchard under conventional and organic management.
- Authors: Meyer, André H , Wooldridge, John , Dames, Joanna F
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444051 , vital:74181 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02571862.2015.1053155
- Description: The effects of conventional (CON; utilising synthetic fertiliser and herbicide) and organic (ORG; nutrients supplied in compost, weeds controlled with straw mulch) orchard floor management practices on depth-wise variation in urease and β-glucosidase activities in tree-row soils were compared in a Western Cape ‘Cripp's Pink’/M7 apple orchard. Urease and β-glucosidase activities were determined spectrophotometrically in soils from five depth intervals from the walls of trenches excavated across the tree rows after seven years of treatment application. Soil pH, organic carbon, nitrate (NO3 ) and ammonium (NH4 ) nitrogen were also determined, as was root density. Enzyme activities were higher in the ORG than the CON topsoils but did not differ significantly (p = 0.05) at depths >30 cm. The positive effects of the ORG treatments were attributed to the liming effect and carbon and nitrogen contributions of the compost. Urease and β-glucosidase activities correlated strongly. Activities of both enzymes correlated significantly and positively with carbon, NO3− and pH, with urease correlated more strongly than β-glucosidase. Only urease correlated with root density. Organic orchard floor management practices may be more effective than CON practices in promoting microbial enzyme activities in the 0–30 cm soil depth intervals of Western Cape apple orchard soils.
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Venerating death
- Authors: Jones, Ward E
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/275749 , vital:55076 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2015.1014540"
- Description: In this paper, I am concerned with elucidating and expanding our attitudes toward our own death. As it is, our common attitudes toward our death are the following: we fear our premature death, and we dread our inevitable death. These attitudes are rational, but I want to argue that our attitudes toward death should be more complicated than this. A condition upon our value, our preciousness, as creatures is that we are vulnerable, and our vulnerability is, at bottom, a vulnerability to death. A corollary of this is that we could not be loved, either by ourselves or by others, for one cannot love—be concerned for—a being invulnerable to death. As a consequence, death plays a deep and abiding role in our value systems. Our susceptibility to premature and inevitable death is a condition upon our being valuable creatures and, in turn, it is a condition upon our being loved. Given the high value that we place on being valuable creatures who deserve love, we should equally place a high value on the constitutive conditions for being precious and loved. If, as I suggest, one of these conditions is that we will die, we should see our deaths not simply as something to fear or dread, but as something of great importance in our lives. Our deaths should be treated with awe, respect, and even praise.
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Visible light transformation of Rhodamine 6G using tetracarbazole zinc phthalocyanine when embedded in electrospun fibers and in the presence of ZnO and Ag particles
- Authors: Khoza, Phindile , Nyokong, Tebello
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/189456 , vital:44848 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00958972.2015.1013944"
- Description: Herein, we report the photocatalytic transformation of Rhodamine 6G (Rh 6G) using tetracarbazole zinc phthalocyanine (TCbZnPc) when alone or when conjugated with ZnO macroparticles (ZnOMPs) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), represented as TCbZnPc–ZnOMPs and TCbZnPc–AgNPs, respectively. The photocatalysts were supported onto electrospun polystyrene fibers. The efficiency of TCbZnPc was improved by the presence of both ZnOMPs and AgNPs. HPLC equipped with UV–vis was used to study phototransformation products. The mechanism of transformation was via the N-de-ethylation of Rh 6G.
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Whose voice is it anyway?
- Authors: Krueger, Anton
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/225695 , vital:49249 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2015.1086195"
- Description: This essay surveys a number of different interpretations of the metaphor of “voice”. It begins by exploring the use of free writing exercises as a means of nurturing the emergence of physical (audible) voice in creative writing classes before assessing some of the ramifications and implications of the trope, both diachronically and synchronically. A key issue of this discussion is whether voice is regarded as individual or social.
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Wisdom as an aim of higher education
- Authors: Jones, Ward E
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/275765 , vital:55077 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-014-9443-z"
- Description: A central concern of theoretical speculation about education is the kind of epistemic states that education can and should aim to achieve. One such epistemic state, long neglected in both education theory and philosophy, is wisdom. Might wisdom be something that educators should aim for? And might it be something that their students can achieve? My answer will be a qualified yes.
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Women combatants and the liberation movements in South Africa
- Authors: Magadla, Siphokazi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/298584 , vital:57718 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10246029.2015.1088645"
- Description: This article examines women's role as combatants in national liberation forces in South Africa. Three categories – guerrilla girls, combative mothers and the in-betweeners – are introduced to underscore the varied ways in which women have participated in combat within the national liberation movements. Factors such as age and one's ability to leave the country affected whether women could participate in combat as ‘guerrilla girls’ or if it limited them to fighting apartheid violence from home, or if there were women who can be defined as having fallen somewhere in between these categories. These categories are used to theorise women's combat roles in the anti-apartheid struggle, thus broadening and challenging the dominant notions of combat that often hide women's contributions in war. In this regard, different periods of struggle, physical location, as well as age, determined the methods of activism available to men and women.
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Working with critical realist perspective and tools at the interface of indigenous and scientific knowledge in a science curriculum setting
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437081 , vital:73329 , ISBN 9781315660899 , https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Realism-Environmental-Learning-and-Social-Ecological-Change/Price-Lotz-Sistka/p/book/9780367597689
- Description: This chapter uses basic and dialectical critical realism to exam-ine and review prevailing dispositions on indigenous and insti-tutional knowledge (Western science) in environmental educa-tion processes. It examines some of the macro social pro-cesses that have inscribed assumptions of incommensurable differences between the two kinds of knowledge. It notes that whereas a previous hegemony of positivism would have re-sulted in the dismissal of much indigenous knowledge as mere superstition, contemporary intellectual perspectives (poststruc-tural and hermeneutical) have shaped a proliferation of worldview modelling that has resulted in a macro-level exempli-fying of indigenous knowledge as different and opposing Western science. Here, the lack of adequate mediating tools has given rise to a problematic inscription of assumed differ-ence between the knowledge of indigenous peoples and that of scientific institutions. Furthermore, despite an overt emancipatory intention in worldview discourses, the marginalization of indigenous peoples and knowledge remains.
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“Ha! Relationships? I only shout at them!”: Strategic management of discordant rapport in an African small business context
- Authors: Lauriks, Sanne , Siebörger, Ian , de Vos, Mark
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385338 , vital:68009 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2015-0002"
- Description: This study demonstrates how and why interactants at a tyre fitment centre in Grahamstown, South Africa, manage discordant interpersonal relationships in strategic ways. Individuals in a post-apartheid small business respond to their social and economic context and exercise agency to their advantage in doing so. This study draws on linguistic ethnography (Rampton 2007) and the Rapport Management Framework (RMF, Spencer-Oatey 2000b, 2011), itself a development of politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987). An initial RMF analysis ran into difficulties around interactions that at first glance appeared to be oriented toward Rapport Challenge and Neglect. Upon closer examination, it appeared that discordant rapport was being actively maintained in this business. This led us to address underdeveloped areas of RMF that were not responsive enough to describe naturally occurring small business interactions, and propose an Enhanced Rapport Management Framework to overcome its inadequacies. We conclude that people may deliberately maintain discordant relationships when it is in their best interests to do so. Thus, contrary to a common-sense belief that harmonious social relations are an intrinsic good, we found that promoting discordant social relations can be understood as a rational response to individuals’ social and economic contexts, particularly in conditions such as those in many postcolonial African societies.
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