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Malware targeting user privacy has seen a surge in recent times, attributed to evolving global regulations and the boost of electronic commerce and online services. Moreover, recognizing privacy malware that employs obfuscation as evasion mechanism presents a major challenge due to its dynamics, resilience, and polymorphism at runtime, necessitating the application of forensic techniques such as memory dumping analysis in order to reveal suitable patterns and behaviors that enable its subsequent detection and classification. In this paper, we present three obfuscated privacy malware classifiers trained on the CIC-MalMem-2022 dataset. These solutions include a binary classifier to distinguish benign from malicious samples using logistic regression (LR), a multiclass classifier that further categorizes benign, spyware, ransomware, and trojan horse obfuscated privacy malware; and a more detailed multiclass classifier capable of discriminating benign samples from fifteen specific obfuscated privacy malware families. Multiclass classifiers were built using several traditional machine learning algorithms and a novel Deep Neural Network (DNN). We applied the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) to address data imbalances. In particular, our results demonstrate that DNN outperforms traditional machine learning algorithms, yielding statistically significant improvements in key metrics. These achievements reach practical thresholds, suggesting the potential for enhanced malware protection systems. The dataset and all the coding files required for experiments reproducibility are publicly available at https://github.com/dcevallossalas/PrivacyMalwareClassifiers.

Water scarcity and salinity pose significant challenges for agriculture in the Galapagos Islands, severely limiting crop yields needed to sustainably meet the growing demands of the human population in the archipelago. To address this issue, environmentally friendly water-saving technologies such as Hydrogel and Groasis Growboxx were considered to be potential solutions. This study focused on evaluating the effectiveness of Hydrogel application on five crops: Broccoli (Brassica oleracea), Cucumber (Cucumis melo), Pepper (Capsicum annuum), Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), and Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), from 2017 to 2018. The experiment stopped due to the pandemic in 2019–2020. When the study continued in 2021, Growboxx® was introduced as a treatment for Pepper and Tomato. This study revealed that the application of Hydrogel resulted in enhanced yields, with the degree of improvement varying across different crops and cultivation periods. Notably, when comparing Hydrogel and Growboxx treatments, differences of up to 30% in fruit weight were observed. However, it is important to note that these results can vary in different environments. For example, in Tomato cultivation, Growboxx exhibited 10% higher fruit weight in San Cristobal compared to Santa Cruz Island. Our findings provide valuable insights for stakeholders in the Galapagos Islands, offering crop-specific guidance to support informed decisions on adopting the most appropriate technologies for their farms.

Agriculture in the populated islands of the Galapagos Archipelago, a protected area due to its unique biodiversity, has been detrimental to its conservation but highly required to meet food necessities. A potential solution to make agricultural farming more sustainable is adopting water-saving technologies (WSTs). Therefore, this study aimed to test the effectiveness of using WSTs such as Groasis Waterboxx® in three of the most valuable crops in the islands through participatory research with the involvement of a group of farmers from the Floreana and Santa Cruz islands and explore a possible transition to more sustainable agricultural practices. Capsicum annuum, Cucumis sativus and Solanum lycopersicum were cultivated using Groasis Waterboxx® and compared to conventional irrigation practices (drip-irrigated controls) to assess the variability of productivity, the number of fruits and individual fruit weight (IFW). In addition, differences in plant traits were analyzed by crop, and island. Results suggested that WSTs such as Groasis Waterboxx® may provide on-farm benefits regarding the yields of the studied traits. From this study, it is difficult to determine whether participation in such a research study will permanently change irrigation practices. However, the participant’s responses to the study suggest an increase in their understanding of the use and benefits of WST.

Resumen: Este artículo presenta la implementación de un Internet bot que puede ser utilizado por una o varias aplicaciones cliente a través de un servicio web. El Internet bot, empleando el motor de búsqueda de Google y un listado de palabras clave y URL de sitios web ingresados por el usuario, realiza varias búsquedas para obtener las páginas web de los sitios indicados que contengan información relacionada con las palabras clave. El Internet bot analiza la información de cada página web encontrada y, mediante un algoritmo de puntuaciones propio del Internet bot, determina por cada página web únicamente la información que con mayor probabilidad contiene el dato exacto que el usuario busca. De esta manera, el usuario puede encontrar de manera sencilla y rápida información precisa en Internet y no tan sólo los URL de las páginas web que contienen dicha información. Abstract:This paper presentsthe implementation of anInternet botthatcan be used byone or moreclient applicationsthrough awebservice.TheInternet bot, byusing theGooglesearch engine, a list ofkeywordsand URL of websites specified by users, performsseveral searchesfor getting the webpages ofthe indicated sitesthat may have informationrelated with the provided keywords. TheInternetbotanalyzes the informationof eachwebpage found during the Google search andby using a scores algorithm, specifically developed for the Internet bot, determines, foreachweb page,only the informationthatmost likelycontainsthe precisedata that theuser is looking for. Thus, the user can easily andquickly findaccurate information in the Internet and not just the URL for the pages that contain such information as is tha case with a Google search.

El presente proyecto investigativo demuestra la problemática en el que se encuentra el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito, esto es debido al alto consumo por parte de la sociedad de materiales plásticos entre ellos el polietileno de tereftalato (PET) los cuales no tiene un destino final apropiado. En primer lugar el proyecto proporciona factores favorables para una construcción sostenible, porque se intenta mitigar el problema de la contaminación y de la disminución de uso de mamposterías tradicionales. El objetivo es brindar a la sociedad alternativas de construcción mediante el reciclaje de materiales de alto consumo logrando conservar el medio ambiente, una forma de mitigación es la reutilización de las botellas plásticas de cualquier capacidad como elementos constructivos de mampostería. Esta construcción novedosa debe cumplir con parámetros que brinden seguridad a sus ocupantes, para ello la investigación determinará a través de ensayos en especímenes de mampostería las bases de diseño para la construcción con elementos reciclados, verificando los resultado con las normas vigentes en el país.

Resumo: Diante da crise socioambiental e civilizadora atual, é necessário tomar ações que permitam o empoderamento das pessoas e suas comunidades, com o fim de promover as transformações nos seus estilos de vida e avançar para a sociedade do Bom viver. O presente trabalho de pesquisa tem como objetivo divulgar o projeto “Convento Eco-empreende”. Trata-se de uma experiência eco-pedagógica que constitui uma alternativa comunitária através dos processos da educação socioambiental, a construção de um horto agroecológico e a criação de processos de empreendedorismo solidário. Como resultado, são mostrados os processos de capacitação de um grupo de pessoas da comunidade rural do Convento na costa equatoriana. Em suma, conclui-se que a educação socioambiental requer um diálogo de saberes que integre o conhecimento científico com a sabedoria ancestral das comunidades.