9,942 research outputs found
Mitigating Detrimental Effect of Self‐Doping Near the Anode in Highly Efficient Organic Solar Cells
Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) has been one of the most established hole transport layers (HTL) in organic solar cells (OSCs) for several decades. However, the presence of PSS− ions is known to deteriorate device performance via a number of mechanisms including diffusion to the HTL-active layer interface and unwanted local chemical reactions. In this study, it is shown that PSS− ions can also result in local p-doping in the high efficiency donor:non-fullerene acceptor blends – resulting in photocurrent loss. To address these issues, a facile and effective approach is reported to improve the OSC performance through a two-component hole transport layer (HTL) consisting of a self-assembled monolayer of 2PACz ([2-(9H-Carbazol-9-yl)ethyl]phosphonic acid) and PEDOT:PSS. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 17.1% using devices with PEDOT:PSS HTL improved to 17.7% when the PEDOT:PSS/2PACz two-component HTL is used. The improved performance is attributed to the overlaid 2PACz layer preventing the formation of an intermixed p-doped PSS− ion rich region (≈5–10 nm) at the bulk heterojunction-HTL contact interface, resulting in decreased recombination losses and improved stability. Moreover, the 2PACz monolayer is also found to reduce electrical shunts that ultimately yield improved performance in large area devices with PCE enhanced from 12.3% to 13.3% in 1 cm2 cells
EFFECTIVE PATCH MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS
This thesis establishes the importance of patch management and its role in the reduction of exploitable vulnerabilities and the increased security of government information systems (IS). As technology continues to evolve, cybersecurity has become a leading concern. The vast increase in computer usage and technological advancements have provided many benefits to organizations in both the private and public sectors. The need to protect ISs against cyber-attacks has grown at the same rate. Cybersecurity is not a new concept but its applicability continues to be a problematic concept or hindrance to incorporate into both legacy and new ISs across government and private entities. Government ISs tend to be more susceptible to cyber-attacks. Resiliency at the conception of an IS is imperative and maintaining that resiliency is key to sustaining the security posture of any IS. The primary goal of government ISs is to provide new capabilities and resources to the warfighter. New ISs rely heavily on the use of software and its ability to be upgraded or modified. Legacy systems often utilize outdated software. Both types of systems require maintenance throughout the lifecycle. Many government ISs operate out-of-date software versions or are not patched on a routine basis to ensure ISs are not exposed to vulnerabilities. Patch management is an important practice that can prevent the exposure to cyber-attacks the exploitation of known vulnerabilities and improve the cyber hygiene of ISs.Civilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited
Improving Transportation Project Evaluation by Recognizing the Role of Spatial Scale and Context in Measuring Non-User Economic Benefits
The usefulness of transportation project evaluation depends on the completeness of its benefit measures. Since transportation networks are intrinsically spatial, transportation improvement projects have spatial access and location characteristics that can lead to a variety of non-user economic benefits. Recent research has enabled us to better understand how spatial context and spatial heterogeneity play further roles in generating efficiency gains for non-users, in the form of productivity, income, and cost savings for both private and public sectors of the economy. This paper draws upon that body of research to expand our understanding of the means by which transportation projects can generate economic efficiency gains, and approaches needed to measure them. It covers topics beyond those captured by current definitions of “wider economic benefits,” including additional sources of scale economies associated with freight distribution and connectivity, and further public and private sector economic gains enabled by environmental and social inclusion improvement. It points to ways that non-user economic benefits can be more comprehensively defined and better measured by recognizing their spatial scale, context, and threshold effects. It also identifies ways that current benefit measurement methods introduce unintended bias into transportation investment decision-making through omission and mismeasurement. The result is a case for a refresh of thinking about how we classify and recognize non-user economic benefits in transportation evaluation, and how we apply transportation planning and economic models to support their measurement
Tourism and heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone
Tourism and Heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) uses an ethnographic lens to explore the dissonances associated with the commodification of Chornobyl's heritage.
The book considers the role of the guides as experience brokers, focusing on the synergy between tourists and guides in the performance of heritage interpretation. Banaszkiewicz proposes to perceive tour guides as important actors in the bottom-up construction of heritage discourse contributing to more inclusive and participatory approach to heritage management. Demonstrating that the CEZ has been going through a dynamic transformation into a mass tourism attraction, the book offers a critical reflection on heritagisation as a meaning-making process in which the resources of the past are interpreted, negotiated, and recognised as a valuable legacy. Applying the concepts of dissonant heritage to describe the heterogeneous character of the CEZ, the book broadens the interpretative scope of dark tourism which takes on a new dimension in the context of the war in Ukraine.
Tourism and Heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone argues that post-disaster sites such as Chornobyl can teach us a great deal about the importance of preserving cultural and natural heritage for future generations. The book will be of interest to academics and students who are engaged in the study of heritage, tourism, memory, disasters and Eastern Europe
Examining the Cyber Skills Gap: An Analysis of Cybersecurity Positions by Sub-Field
While demand for cybersecurity professionals is high, the field is currently facing a workforce shortage and a skills gap. Thus, an examination of current cybersecurity position hiring requirements may be advantageous for helping to close the skills gap. This work examines the education, professional experience, industry certification, security clearance, and programming skill requirements of 935 cybersecurity positions categorized by sub-field. The nine sub-fields are: architecture, auditing, education, GRC (governance, risk, and compliance), management, operations, penetration testing, software security, and threat intelligence / research. Prior work experience and higher education degrees in technical fields were found to be frequently required across all sub-fields. Over 48% of positions listed an industry cybersecurity certification, while 19% of positions required a security clearance. In addition, 25% of positions listed knowledge of a programming language as a requirement for employment. There were notable differences in certain position requirements between sub-fields. On average, management positions required three years of additional work experience than positions in the auditing, operations, and penetration testing sub-fields. Security clearance requirements were relatively similar across all other sub-fields, with the GRC sub-field having the highest percentage of positions requiring a security clearance. Programming skills were desired most prevalently in positions within the architecture, software security, and penetration testing sub-fields. Demand for industry certifications varied by sub-field, although the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification was the most frequently desired certification. Cybersecurity education programs should consider the diverse nature of the cybersecurity field and develop pathways to prepare future cybersecurity professionals for success in any sub-field
Integración de la gestión de seguridad cibernética a la gestión de riesgo empresarial
Con los avances tecnológicos llegan nuevas formas de criminalidad asociadas al ciberespacio, lo cual refuerza la necesidad de gestionar los riesgos cibernéticos asociados. Esta investigación buscó profundizar en aspectos que le aporten a la integración de la seguridad cibernética con la ya más establecida gestión de riesgo empresarial. Para ello, se realizó una revisión de literatura sobre gestión de seguridad cibernética, riesgos cibernéticos y gestión de riesgos empresariales; adicionalmente, se utilizó el análisis de casos, cuya muestra abarcó cuatro compañías de un grupo empresarial con presencia en Latinoamérica, perteneciente al Sector Financiero. Se observó que la integración de estas gestiones depende, en gran medida, del apoyo por parte de la Alta Dirección para la habilitación de estrategias y recursos, del conocimiento que las empresas absorben del entorno para adoptar buenas prácticas metodológicas y operativas, y del comportamiento que las personas tienen frente a las amenazas y los riesgos. Se concluyó que para tener una adecuada integración entre la gestión de la seguridad cibernética y la gestión de los riesgos empresariales se requiere de iniciativas que sean habilitadas desde la más alta dirección de la organización y que sean implementadas en todos los niveles, abarcando temas como cultura, conocimiento, metodologías, herramientas, roles y responsabilidades.With technological advances come new forms of crime associated with cyberspace, which increases the need to manage the associated cyber risks. This research pursued to delve into aspects that contribute to the integration of cybersecurity with the already well-established business risk management. To do this, a literature review about Cybersecurity Management, Cyber Risks and Business Risk Management was carried out; additionally, the case analysis method was used, with a sample composed by four companies from Financial Sector, with presence in Latin-America. It was observed that the integration largely depends on the support from senior management profiles for enabling strategies and resources; additionally, on the knowledge that companies absorb from the environment to implement good methodological and operational practices; and from behavior of people against threats and risks. It was concluded to have a proper integration between Cybersecurity Management and Business Risk Management, initiatives supported from the highest management profiles of the organization are required, which need to be implemented at all levels, including topics such as culture, knowledge, methodologies, tools, roles and responsibilities
Learning disentangled speech representations
A variety of informational factors are contained within the speech signal and a single short recording of speech reveals much more than the spoken words. The best method to extract and represent informational factors from the speech signal ultimately depends on which informational factors are desired and how they will be used. In addition, sometimes methods will capture more than one informational factor at the same time such as speaker identity, spoken content, and speaker prosody.
The goal of this dissertation is to explore different ways to deconstruct the speech signal into abstract representations that can be learned and later reused in various speech technology tasks. This task of deconstructing, also known as disentanglement, is a form of distributed representation learning. As a general approach to disentanglement, there are some guiding principles that elaborate what a learned representation should contain as well as how it should function. In particular, learned representations should contain all of the requisite information in a more compact manner, be interpretable, remove nuisance factors of irrelevant information, be useful in downstream tasks, and independent of the task at hand. The learned representations should also be able to answer counter-factual questions.
In some cases, learned speech representations can be re-assembled in different ways according to the requirements of downstream applications. For example, in a voice conversion task, the speech content is retained while the speaker identity is changed. And in a content-privacy task, some targeted content may be concealed without affecting how surrounding words sound. While there is no single-best method to disentangle all types of factors, some end-to-end approaches demonstrate a promising degree of generalization to diverse speech tasks.
This thesis explores a variety of use-cases for disentangled representations including phone recognition, speaker diarization, linguistic code-switching, voice conversion, and content-based privacy masking. Speech representations can also be utilised for automatically assessing the quality and authenticity of speech, such as automatic MOS ratings or detecting deep fakes. The meaning of the term "disentanglement" is not well defined in previous work, and it has acquired several meanings depending on the domain (e.g. image vs. speech). Sometimes the term "disentanglement" is used interchangeably with the term "factorization". This thesis proposes that disentanglement of speech is distinct, and offers a viewpoint of disentanglement that can be considered both theoretically and practically
DIN Spec 91345 RAMI 4.0 compliant data pipelining: An approach to support data understanding and data acquisition in smart manufacturing environments
Today, data scientists in the manufacturing domain are confronted with a set of challenges associated to data acquisition as well as data processing including the extraction of valuable in-formation to support both, the work of the manufacturing equipment as well as the manufacturing processes behind it.
One essential aspect related to data acquisition is the pipelining, including various commu-nication standards, protocols and technologies to save and transfer heterogenous data. These circumstances make it hard to understand, find, access and extract data from the sources depend-ing on use cases and applications.
In order to support this data pipelining process, this thesis proposes the use of the semantic model. The selected semantic model should be able to describe smart manufacturing assets them-selves as well as to access their data along their life-cycle.
As a matter of fact, there are many research contributions in smart manufacturing, which already came out with reference architectures or standards for semantic-based meta data descrip-tion or asset classification. This research builds upon these outcomes and introduces a novel se-mantic model-based data pipelining approach using as a basis the Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0).Hoje em dia, os cientistas de dados no domínio da manufatura são confrontados com várias normas, protocolos e tecnologias de comunicação para gravar, processar e transferir vários tipos de dados. Estas circunstâncias tornam difícil compreender, encontrar, aceder e extrair dados necessários para aplicações dependentes de casos de utilização, desde os equipamentos aos respectivos processos de manufatura.
Um aspecto essencial poderia ser um processo de canalisação de dados incluindo vários normas de comunicação, protocolos e tecnologias para gravar e transferir dados. Uma solução para suporte deste processo, proposto por esta tese, é a aplicação de um modelo semântico que descreva os próprios recursos de manufactura inteligente e o acesso aos seus dados ao longo do seu ciclo de vida.
Muitas das contribuições de investigação em manufatura inteligente já produziram arquitecturas de referência como a RAMI 4.0 ou normas para a descrição semântica de meta dados ou classificação de recursos. Esta investigação baseia-se nestas fontes externas e introduz um novo modelo semântico baseado no Modelo de Arquitectura de Referência para Indústria 4.0 (RAMI 4.0), em conformidade com a abordagem de canalisação de dados no domínio da produção inteligente como caso exemplar de utilização para permitir uma fácil exploração, compreensão, descoberta, selecção e extracção de dados
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