Fabrication of a Self-Assembled and Flexible SERS Nanosensor for Explosive Detection at Parts-Per-Quadrillion Levels from Fingerprints

Apart from high sensitivity and selectivity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based trace explosive detection, efficient sampling of explosive residue from real world surfaces is very important for homeland security applications. Herein, we demonstrate an entirely new SERS nanosensor fabrication approach. The SERS nanosensor was prepared by self-assembling chemically synthesized gold triangular nanoprisms (Au TNPs), which we show display strong electromagnetic field enhancements at the sharp tips and edges, onto a pressure-sensitive flexible adhesive film. Our SERS nanosensor provides excellent SERS activity (enhancement factor = ∼6.0 × 106) and limit of detection (as low as 56 parts-per-quadrillions) with high selectivity by chemometric analyses among three commonly military high explosives (TNT, RDX, and PETN). Furthermore, the SERS nanosensors present excellent reproducibility (<4.0% relative standard deviation at 1.0 μM concentration) and unprecedentedly high stability with a “shelf life” of at least 5 months. Finally, TNT and PETN were analyzed and quantified by transferring solid explosive residues from fingerprints left on solid surfaces to the SERS nanosensor. Taken together, the demonstrated sensitivity, selectivity, and reliability of the measurements as well as with the excellent shelf life of our SERS nanosensors obviate the need for complicated sample processing steps required for other analytical techniques, and thus these nanosensors have tremendous potential not only in the field of measurement science but also for homeland security applications to combat acts of terror and military threats

Character and theory of mind: an integrative approach

Traditionally, theories of mindreading have focused on the representation of beliefs and desires. However, decades of social psychology and social neuroscience have shown that, in addition to reasoning about beliefs and desires, human beings also use representations of character traits to predict and interpret behavior. While a few recent accounts have attempted to accommodate these findings, they have not succeeded in explaining the relation between trait attribution and belief-desire reasoning. On my account, character-trait attribution is part of a hierarchical system for action prediction, and serves to inform hypotheses about agents’ beliefs and desires, which are in turn used to predict and interpret behavior

Deploying a Deep Learning-based Application for an Efficient Thermal Energy Storage Air-Conditioning (TES-AC) System: Design Guidelines

Facility management and maintenance of the Thermal-Energy-Storage AirConditioning (TES-AC) system is a tedious task at a large scale mainly due to the charging load that can increase energy consumption if needed to be charged at peak hours. Besides, maintenance of TES-AC at a large scale gets complex as it contains many sensor data. By utilizing deep learning techniques on the sensor data, charging load prediction can be made possible, so facility managers can prepare in advance. However, a deep learning-based application will be unusable if it is not deployed in a userfriendly manner where facility managers can benefit from this application. Hence, this research focuses on gathering design guidelines for a deep learning-based application and further validates the design considerations with a developed application for efficient human-computer interaction through qualitative analysis. The approach taken to gather design guidelines demonstrated a positive correlation between expert-suggested features and the user-friendly aspect of the application as 67.08% of participants found the features suggested by experts to be most satisfactory. Furthermore, it evaluates user satisfaction with the advanced developed application for TES-AC according to the gathered design guidelines

Portable Tor Router: Easily Enabling Web Privacy for Consumers

On-line privacy is of major public concern. Unfortunately, for the average consumer, there is no simple mechanism to browse the Internet privately on multiple devices. Most available Internet privacy mechanisms are either expensive, not readily available, untrusted, or simply provide trivial information masking. We propose that the simplest, most effective and inexpensive way of gaining privacy, without sacrificing unnecessary amounts of functionality and speed, is to mask the user's IP address while also encrypting all data. We hypothesized that the Tor protocol is aptly suited to address these needs. With this in mind we implemented a Tor router using a single board computer and the open-source Tor protocol code. We found that our proposed solution was able to meet five of our six goals soon after its implementation: cost effectiveness, immediacy of privacy, simplicity of use, ease of execution, and unimpaired functionality. Our final criterion of speed was sacrificed for greater privacy but it did not fall so low as to impair day-to-day functionality. With a total cost of roughly $100.00 USD and a speed cap of around 2 Megabits per second we were able to meet our goal of an affordable, convenient, and usable solution to increased on-line privacy for the average consumer.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, IEEE ICCE Conferenc

Setting evolutionary-based conservation priorities for a phylogenetically data-poor taxonomic group (Scleractinia)

Given the current extinction crisis coupled with the shortfall in funding, there is a pressing need to establish species conservation priorities. The prioritization of phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness is one approach; however, taking such an approach requires more phylogenetic data than are currently available for most taxa. Here, we investigate the effects of increased phylogenetic knowledge on the accuracy of evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) scores over time using scleractinian corals as a case study. ED scores were calculated from four molecular-based phylogenies from 2008 to 2013, each one representing a chronological step of increased phylogenetic knowledge for scleractinian corals, finally resulting in a full species-level phylogeny which is used here as the reference dataset. As expected, the most complete and up-to-date phylogenies performed well at predicting scores taken from a recent, full-coverage species-level phylogeny of scleractinian corals. Surprisingly, however, older phylogenies and scores derived from expert opinion also performed well. More unexpectedly, the expert opinion-led scores, when used as a basis for imputing scores for missing species, achieved a close second in terms of prediction accuracy compared with the most recent and largest tree, which had nearly 10 times more taxonomic coverage. We recommend, once tested further, that ED score imputation be considered for assessing the conservation priorities for other poorly studied groups

Aeronautical Engineering. A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 156

This bibliography lists 288 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in December 1982