Remote latency side channels reveal sensitive information by only observing latency variations in the attacker’s traffic with the victim. While these attacks are easy to mount and scale, there is no practical defense. Considering the more powerful attacker-in-the-middle scenarios, available mitigations require the cooperation of all communication partners for protection, and cause prohibitive overheads.

In this paper, we propose AckwardDelay, a new unilateral, purely client-side, and lightweight defense against remote latency side channels. In detail, we piece-wise apply constant-time principles on the latency side channel and computationally show that a fully remote attacker requires more than 250 samples to reduce the initial search space to below 1% with our recommended parameters, even in a scenario favoring the attacker. Based on our proof-of-concept AckwardDelay implementation with less than 1000 lines of code on Linux, we demonstrate that the accuracy of website- and video-fingerprinting attacks is reduced to random guessing in practice. With an increase of only 5.55% on website-loading times and a reduction of only 0.51% in transfer rates, we conclude that AckwardDelay is a practical, lightweight, and effective mitigation applicable to the vast number of client systems such as smart phones, tablets, and laptops.

This paper addresses the challenge of real-time tool condition monitoring in tapping processes using machine learning techniques, with a focus on cross-material generalization and robust fault detection. The study leverages a historical dataset from 1998, comprising 2,195 tapping experiments on two steel alloys - 16 MnCr 5 and 42 CrMo 4 - monitoring torque (Mz) signals to predict binary quality outcomes (good/bad) based on defined quality criteria. To overcome limitations in prior work, the authors introduce a feature extraction method that captures both amplitude and duration characteristics across distinct phases of the torque signal,. The evaluation framework includes increasingly challenging train/test splits: random, run-wise holdout, and cross-material (training on 16 MnCr 5, testing on 42 CrMo 4), enabling assessment of real-world generalizability.

Multiple machine learning models are tested using both raw time-series data (after cleaning and normalization) and engineered features. Results show Matthews Correlation Coefficients (MCC) of 0.40 - 0.41 under cross-material testing-indicating moderate but meaningful generalization across materials with different mechanical properties. This performance level suggests that fundamental physical regularities in successful tapping produce consistent torque signatures, enabling transferable detection of anomalies without retraining. Findings support the feasibility of plug-and-play monitoring systems in agile manufacturing environments, where minimal setup and broad applicability are essential.

Download-Link: Revisiting 1998 Torque Data: A Machine Learning Analysis of Time Series Data for Tapping Experiments

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is increasingly adopted in the aerospace industry, as benefits like resource efficiency are complemented by distributed manufacturing possibilities that enhance supply chain resilience. However, replacing con ventional, established manufacturing methods with Laser Powder Bed Fusion in a highly regulated domain such as civil aviation comes at the price of increased requirements and thus costs for certification and quality assurance, which limit the attractiveness of AM. This paper presents a new data-based certification platform using Machine Learning (ML), a subdomain of artificial intelligence (AI), to enable faster and more cost-efficient design and manufacturing approval for additively manufactured aircraft components. The platform connects all relevant stakeholders and guides them through the certification process. As data sharing across different stakeholders and ML applications are central to the platform, a data governance concept aligned with European legislation, based on project-specific closed groups comprising direct supplier-customer relationships was developed. In addition, a compatible platform business model is described, presenting the roles of stakeholders and their respective value contributions. To this end, a deep dive into the landscape of current certification approaches and requirements was conducted and the impact of AM and the general use of AI on aircraft component certification was evaluated from technical, regulatory, legal, and economic perspectives

We investigate the effectiveness of anti-phishing support systems through a quantitative study involving 453 participants. To this end, we developed a tool that allows participants to immerse themselves in a realistic setting, tasked with classifying emails as either phishing or legitimate, while being assisted by support systems. Despite the prevalence of support systems in webmailers and email clients, our results indicate no significant difference in correctly assessing emails of varying difficulty between these systems and the control group. We found a minor negative effect of the support system that uses tooltips compared to other support systems. In the subsequent survey, we found that the support systems are appreciated and considered helpful by users, as supported by the results of the UEQ-S, even if they have no observable effect. Email context, such as the contact list, as well as hovering over the links, had stronger effects on the classification than the tested support systems. 

Accurate and timely forecasts of road surface conditions are crucial for efficient winter maintenance, enhanced traffic safety, and the optimized use of de-icing agents. Road surface phenomena, in complex fields present challenges to traditional forecasting methods due to their nonlinear and localized nature. This study presents a machine learning framework predicting real-time road states (dry, wet, icy, snowy) across Bavaria, Germany. It integrates data from over 516 Road Weather Stations (RWS), thermal measurements from winter maintenance vehicles, and elevation data from the Open Elevation API. Data undergoes temporal alignment, spatial interpolation, and missing-value imputation. Decision Trees form the core model for interpretability and nonlinear pattern handling. Each RWS employs a localized model, while a generalized version covers unmonitored roads via spatial adjustments. With over 85% accuracy, the system facilitates dynamic winter maintenance and minimizes resource waste. Cyber-physical in smart mobility and transportation networks support improved real-time hazard responses. This approach shows how scalable infrastructure can be made resilient using machine learning.

This paper presents a low-complexity, open-source platform designed to empower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the premium business to business (B2B) packaging industry with advanced digital capabilities for product personalization and rapid design visualization. Addressing the sector’s persistent barriers such as limited IT resources, manual workflows, and lack of structured supplier data access, the proposed system integrates dynamic web scraping for automated supplier data acquisition with real-time image processing for printable area detection on packaging components, particularly bottles. Leveraging open-source tools like Beautiful Soup, OpenCV, and Shapely, the platform eliminates reliance on time-intensive manual integration and supports agile, data-driven design workflows. The development process is guided by human-centered design principles to ensure usability and alignment with SME operational realities. Results demonstrate that this approach significantly streamlines catalog management and design preparation, offering a scalable pathway for SMEs to achieve digital transformation and maintain competitive differentiation in an increasingly digitalized packaging market.

We present SITUATE, a novel dataset designed for training and evaluating Vision Language Models on counting tasks with spatial constraints. The dataset bridges the gap between simple 2D datasets like VLMCountBench and often ambiguous real-life datasets like TallyQA, which lack control over occlusions and spatial composition. Experiments show that our dataset helps to improve generalization for out-of-distribution images, since a finetune of Qwen VL 2.5 7B on SITUATE improves accuracy on the Pixmo count test data, but not vice versa. We cross validate this by comparing the model performance across established other counting benchmarks and against an equally sized fine-tuning set derived from Pixmo count.

Digital transformation in health and social care extends far beyond the adoption of new technologies and requires coordinated organizational change. The projectpulsnetz –Mensch und Technik im Gemeinwesen (MuTiG)addresses this challenge with an Integrative Model for Leadership and Employee Development that links individual upskilling with strategic organizational transformation to advance digital maturity.Led by an interdisciplinary consortium, the project began with a comprehensive needs assessment and subsequently developed modular training programs, tailored organizational consulting, and a digital knowledge platform to foster long-term learning and peer exchange. Implementation is continuously evaluated using standardized online surveys and qualitative interviews. To date, more than 3,700 professionals from health and social care organizations have participated. Survey response rates have been moderate to high, and feedback is largely positive, with mean ratings typicallyabove 3.5 (0–4 Likert-scale); trainer performance and support receive the highest scores. Participants in leadership roles reported slightly lower levels of new learning, likely due to their higher prior knowledge.Preliminary findings suggest that sustainable digital transformation requires a combined focus on individual skill development, organizational learning, and structural adaptation. The MuTiG model provides a scalable, practice-oriented, and transferable framework that can guide health and social care organizations in their digital transformation journeys. While long-term impact cannot yet be fully assessed due to the project’s ongoing nature, early results underline its potential to support lasting digital transformation.

Triple Graph Grammars (TGGs) are a visual, intuitive approach for specifying model transformations, allowing the automatic derivation of model management operations including forward/backward transformations and incremental synchronisation with guaranteed, desirable properties.
The conceptual simplicity of TGGs comes at a price, however, as all TGG tools impose substantial limits on practical expressiveness (measured by ease of specification, size, and readability in this paper), rendering TGGs unsuitable for real-world transformations and representing a major barrier to their mainstream adoption.
This paper discusses excerpts of model transformations that are exceedingly difficult (and perhaps even impossible) to specify using TGGs, analyses the underlying causes, and suggests suitable extensions of existing language features.
Our goal is to inspire research that improves the practical expressiveness of TGGs and facilitates applications of the approach.

This paper revisits the Families to Persons Case with a significant extension: concurrent model synchronization. Building on the original benchmark test cases, we introduce new tests for synchronizing models and resolving conflicts, thereby enhancing the framework's capability to benchmark bidirectional transformation tools under more realistic conditions. This advancement is crucial for assessing the tools' performance in concurrent engineering scenarios requiring data consistency across multiple models.