Explore the vast range of titles available.

The healthcare sectors have constantly faced significant challenge due to the rapid rise of cyber threats. These threats can pose any potential risk within the system context and disrupt the critical healthcare service delivery. It is therefore necessary for the healthcare organisations to understand and tackle the threats to ensure overall security and resilience. However, threats are continuously evolved and there is large amount of unstructured security-related textual information is available. This makes the threat assessment and management task very challenging. There are a number of existing works that consider Machine Learning models for detection and prediction of cyber attack but they lack of focus on the Natural Language Processing (NLP) to extract the threat information from unstructured security-related text. To this end, this work proposes a novel method to assess and manage threats by adopting natural language processing. The proposed method has been tailored for the healthcare ecosystem and allows to identify and assess the possible threats within healthcare information infrastructure so that appropriate control and mitigation actions can be taken into consideration to tackle the threat. In detail, NLP techniques are used to extract the useful threat information related to specific assets of the healthcare ecosystems from the largely available security-related information on Internet (e.g. cyber security news), to evaluate the level of the identified threats and to select the required mitigation actions. We have performed experiments on real healthcare ecosystems in Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering, considering in particular three different healthcare scenarios, namely implantable medical devices, wearables, and biobank, with the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of our approach, which is able to provide a realistic manner to identify and assess the threats, evaluate the threat level and suggest the required mitigation actions.

In order to deal with the new threat of low altitude slow small (LSS) targets in air defense operations and provide support for LSS target interception decision, we propose a simple and reliable LSS target threat assessment method. Based on the detection capability of LSS targets and their threat characteristics, this paper proposes a threat evaluation factor and threat degree quantization function in line with the characteristics of LSS targets. LSS targets not only have the same threat characteristics as traditional air targets but also have the unique characteristics of flexible mobility and dynamic mission planning. Therefore, we use analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and information entropy to determine the subjective and objective threat factor weights of LSS targets and use the optimization model to combine them to obtain more reliable evaluation weights. Finally, the effectiveness and credibility of the proposed method are verified by experimental simulation.

During the judicial process of addressing violent crime, a forensic practitioner may need to assess whether an inflicted injury should be considered life-threatening. This could be important for the classification of the crime. To some extent, these assessments are arbitrary since the natural course of an injury might not be completely known. To guide the assessment, a quantitative and transparent method based on rates of mortality and acute interventions is suggested, using spleen injuries as an example. The electronic database PubMed was searched using the term “spleen injuries” for articles reporting on rates of mortality and interventions such as surgery and angioembolization in spleen injuries. By combining these different rates, a method for a transparent and quantitative assessment of the risk to life across the natural course of spleen injuries is presented. A total of 301 articles were identified, and 33 of these were included in the study. The mortality rate of spleen injuries, as reported in studies, varied between 0% and 2.9% in children, and between 0% and 15.4% in adults. However, when combining the rates of acute interventions and the mortality rates, the risk of death across the natural course of spleen injuries was estimated as 9.7% in children, and 46.4% in adults. The calculated risk of death across the natural course of spleen injuries in adults was considerable higher than the observed mortality. A similar but smaller effect was observed in children. The forensic assessment of life-threat in cases involving spleen injury needs further research; however, the applied method is a step towards an evidence-based practice for forensic life-threat assessments. •Introducing an evidence-based practice in assessing the threat to life that an injury carries in a judicial context.•In the natural course of spleen injuries the observed mortality rate underestimates the risk to life.•The risk to life in a judicial setting is estimated by adding the rates of mortality and acute interventions.

Ensuring the physical security of electric power substations is crucial for maintaining a reliable supply of electricity. The increasing prevalence of physical threats, such as physical attacks, vandalism, sabotage, etc., on electric power substations worldwide has resulted in widespread power outages. To enhance physical security in light of these high-impact, low-probability events, this paper proposes a physical security threat assessment approach to evaluate and enhance substation security against physical attacks utilizing the Substation Criticality Index (SCI) and the Threat–Vulnerability–Consequences Index (TVCI) on risk-based security-constrained economic dispatch. The primary objective is to provide power utilities with actionable insights to proactively strengthen their defenses within budgetary constraints by considering the criticality level of each substation. By incorporating social, economic, and electrical factors, this study simulated a physical attack (specifically a bus-isolating attack), on an IEEE 39-bus test system, and evaluated the resultant consequences and load loss. Upon computation of the SCI, substations are ordered according to their criticality, and computing the TVCI gives the risk of each substation which is used to obtain an optimized physical security investment based on substation vulnerability and the consequences of attacks. Thus, based on these results, decisions for prioritizing substation physical security and investments for hardening physical security are made. Furthermore, the experimentation showed that with the physical security investment, the overall TVCI score has significantly decreased with certain budgetary constant.

Societal Impact Statement Herbaria can be considered plant libraries, each holding collections of dried specimens documenting plant diversity in space and time. For many plant species, these are our only evidence of their existence and the only means of assessing their conservation status. Specimens in all herbaria, especially those in small and often under‐resourced herbaria in megadiverse countries, are key to achieving accurate estimates of the conservation status of the world's plant species. They are also part of a country's shared heritage and critical contributions to knowledge of the world's diversity. Summary Internationally agreed targets to assess the conservation status of all plant species rely largely on digitised distribution data from specimens held in herbaria. Using taxonomically curated databases of herbarium specimen data for the mega‐diverse genera Begonia (Begoniaceae) and Solanum (Solanaceae) occurring in Peru, we test the value added from including data from local herbaria and herbaria of different sizes on estimations of threat status using International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria. We find that the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) has little data from Peruvian herbaria and adding these data influences the estimated threat status of these species, reducing the numbers of Critically Endangered and Vulnerable species in both genera. Similarly, adding data from small‐ and medium‐sized herbaria, whether in‐country or not, also improves the accuracy of threat assessments. [Correction added on 08 September 2023, after first online publication: In the preceding sentence, “litter” has been corrected to “little” in this version.] A renewed focus on resourcing and recognising the contribution of small and in‐country herbaria is required if we are to meet internationally agreed targets for plant conservation. We discuss our case study in the broader context of democratising and increasing participation in global botanical science. Los herbarios pueden considerarse bibliotecas de plantas, cada uno de los cuales contiene colecciones de ejemplares secos que documentan la diversidad de plantas en el espacio y el tiempo. Para muchas especies de plantas, estas son nuestra única evidencia de su existencia y el único medio para evaluar su estado de conservación. Ejemplares en todos los herbarios, especialmente aquellos en herbarios pequeños y con frecuencia de escasos recursos en países megadiversos, son clave para lograr estimaciones precisas del estado de conservación de las especies de plantas del mundo, tambien son parte del patrimonio compartido de un país y una contribución crítica al conocimiento de la diversidad del mundo. Herbaria can be considered plant libraries, each holding collections of dried specimens documenting plant diversity in space and time. For many plant species, these are our only evidence of their existence and the only means of assessing their conservation status. Specimens in all herbaria, especially those in small and often under‐resourced herbaria in megadiverse countries, are key to achieving accurate estimates of the conservation status of the world's plant species. They are also part of a country's shared heritage and critical contributions to knowledge of the world's diversity.

For decision-making in a highly uncertain environment, experts may be unable to accurately express or even neglect some deep latent uncertain information, leading to decision bias. This study extends the normal wiggly hesitant fuzzy set (NWHFS) to propose a novel fuzzy set, the normal wiggly probabilistic hesitant fuzzy set (NWPHFS), with the aim of further mining the probability hesitation fuzzy information hidden in expert assessment and improving the limitation pertaining to the inability of NWHFS in containing membership. To establish the theoretical basis for operationalizing NWPHFS, we put forward a preliminary theoretical and methodological framework of NWPHFS, which formulates the concept of cut set and decomposition theorem of NWPHFS, defines a score function of NWPHFS, and clarifies the basic properties and operations of NWPHFS. Finally, two aggregation operators of NWPHFS are proposed. The proposed NWPHFS method can comprehensively consider the subjective preference of membership importance and the potential preference of membership itself in expert assessment so as to mine the real preference of experts entirely, thus enhancing the rationality of decision-making. Furthermore, to demonstrate its application and superiority, NWPHFS is applied to multi-criteria battlefield threat assessment in a hypothetical war scenario, and compared with other types of fuzzy sets. Our study shows that NWPHFS can more comprehensively excavate and utilize the deep uncertainty information in expert assessment, and has great potential in applying to practical decision-making scenarios, such as battlefield threat assessment, a complex military decision-making problem heavily dependent on expert judgment.

Assessing potential threats typically necessitates the use of a robust mathematical model, a comprehensive evaluation method and universal decision rules. A novel approach is utilized in this study to optimize existing threat assessment (TA) algorithms and three-way decision models (3WDMs) are leveraged that incorporate decision-theoretic rough sets (DTRSs) within dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) environments to create a mixed-attitude 3WDM based on the IF-VIKOR-GRA method in the context of aviation warfare. The primary objectives of this study include determining conditional probabilities for IF three-way decisions (3WDs) and establishing mixed-attitude decision thresholds. Both the target attribute and loss function are expressed in the form of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFNs). To calculate these conditional probabilities, an IF technique is used to combine the multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) method VIKOR and the grey relational analysis (GRA) method, while also taking into account the risk-related preferences of decision-makers (DMs). Optimistic and pessimistic 3WDMs are developed from the perspectives of membership degree and non-membership degree, then subsequently integrated into the comprehensive mixed-attitude 3WDM. The feasibility and effectiveness of this methodology are demonstrated through a numerical example and by comparison to other existing approaches.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184457.].

The classical weapon target allocation (WTA) problem has been evaluated within the scope of electronic warfare (EW) threat assessment with an electromagnetic effect-based jammer- tactical radio engagement approach. As different from the literature, optimum allocation of non-directional jammers operating at different operating UHF frequencies under constraints to RF emitters is aimed in this study. The values of the targets are modelled using an original threat assessment algorithm developed that takes into account operating frequencies, jamming distance, and weather conditions. The computed jammer-target effect matrix has been solved under different scenarios according to the efficiency and cost constraints. It is seen at the end of the simulations that the allocation results for EW applications largely depend on the effect ratio used. The better results are taken in the case of under 0.5 effect ratio. Finally, jammer-radio allocation problem specified at the suggested model is solved successfully and effectively.

The Islamic State (IS) centric threat has spread to Africa and Asia. In Sub Saharan Africa, the threat is growing in the Sahel and, in Asia, the threat is growing in South Asia. The IS influence in Africa is growing, with attacks in Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Somalia. The IS suffered very serious setbacks in Iraq and Syria throughout 2019 but expanded to other parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia. All indications are that Afghanistan is likely to emerge as an alternative IS headquarters. Regarding the relations between al Qaeda and IS, the two movements, that are ideological akin, are likely to merge if not work together at least in some theatres. If so, the global threat to governments and communities will increase exponentially.