Modification of Poly(5,6-epoxy-l-norleucine) Gives Functional Polypeptides with Alternative Side-Chain Linkages.

The preparation and characterization of a new epoxide containing polypeptide, poly(5,6-epoxy-l-norleucine), via postpolymerization modification of poly(l-homoallylglycine) is described. Addition of thiols to the epoxide groups in poly(5,6-epoxy-l-norleucine) was studied as a means to prepare side-chain functional polypeptides. The solution properties of the derivatized polypeptides were studied in water and compared to similar thioether containing functional polypeptides prepared via different routes. Subtle differences in side-chain linkage chemistry were found to influence polypeptide solubility, chain conformation in solution, and thermoresponsive behavior. Poly(5,6-epoxy-l-norleucine) was found to be useful as a readily prepared intermediate that can be reacted with thiols to give a variety of functional polypeptides

A short note on effective Pauli noise models

We provide a simple prescription to extract an effective Pauli noise model from classical simulations of a noisy experimental protocol for a unitary gate. This prescription yields the closest Pauli channel approximation to the error channel associated with the gate implementation, as measured by the Frobenius distance between quantum channels. Informed by these results, we highlight some puzzles regarding the quantitative treatment of coherent errors

GOTCHA Password Hackers!

We introduce GOTCHAs (Generating panOptic Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) as a way of preventing automated offline dictionary attacks against user selected passwords. A GOTCHA is a randomized puzzle generation protocol, which involves interaction between a computer and a human. Informally, a GOTCHA should satisfy two key properties: (1) The puzzles are easy for the human to solve. (2) The puzzles are hard for a computer to solve even if it has the random bits used by the computer to generate the final puzzle --- unlike a CAPTCHA. Our main theorem demonstrates that GOTCHAs can be used to mitigate the threat of offline dictionary attacks against passwords by ensuring that a password cracker must receive constant feedback from a human being while mounting an attack. Finally, we provide a candidate construction of GOTCHAs based on Inkblot images. Our construction relies on the usability assumption that users can recognize the phrases that they originally used to describe each Inkblot image --- a much weaker usability assumption than previous password systems based on Inkblots which required users to recall their phrase exactly. We conduct a user study to evaluate the usability of our GOTCHA construction. We also generate a GOTCHA challenge where we encourage artificial intelligence and security researchers to try to crack several passwords protected with our scheme.Comment: 2013 ACM Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Security (AISec

CORPORATIONS-OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS-STOCK OPTION INCENTIVE EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS FOR CORPORATION EXECUTIVES

In the past few decades considerable attention has been directed toward piecework payment for corporate executives; that is, compensation based largely upon results rather than upon past or expected performance. The stock option incentive employment contract\u27 is one of the means utilized to achieve that desired objective

Effect of electron-phonon interaction on the shift and attenuation of optical phonons

Using the Boltzmann equation for electrons in metals, we show that the optical phonons soften and have a dispersion due to screening in agreement with the results reported recently [M. Reizer, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 61}, 40 (2000)]. Additional phonon damping and frequency shift arise when the electron--phonon interaction is properly included.Comment: 4 pages, late

It’s Doom Alone That Counts: Can International Human Rights Law Be An Effective Source of Rights in Correctional Conditions Litigation?

Over the past three decades, the US judiciary has grown increasingly less receptive to claims by convicted felons about the conditions of their confinement while in prison. Although courts have not articulated a return to the \u27hands off\u27 policy of the 1950s, it is clear that it has become significantly more difficult for prisoners to prevail in constitutional correctional litigation. The passage and aggressive implementation ofthe Prison Litigation Reform Act has been a powerful disincentive to such litigation in many areas ofprisoners\u27 rights law. From the perspective of the prisoner, the legal landscape is more hopeful in matters that relate to mental health care and treatment. Here, in spite of a general trend toward more stringent applications of standards of proof and a reluctance to order sweeping, intrusive remedies, some courts have aggressively protected prisoners’ rights to be free from \u27deliberate indifference\u27 to serious medical needs, and to be free from excessive force on the part of prison officials. A mostly hidden undercurrent in some prisoners\u27 rights litigation has been the effort on the part of some plaintiffs\u27 lawyers to look to international human rights doctrines as a potential source of rights, an effort that has met with some modest success. It gets support by the inclination of other courts to turn to international human rights conventions, even in nations where such conventions have not been ratified, as a kind of \u27best practices\u27 in the area. The recent publication and subsequent ratification (though not, as of yet, by the United States) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) may add new support to those using international human rights documents as a basis for litigating prisoners\u27 rights claims. To the best of our knowledge, there has, as of yet, been no scholarly literature on the question of the implications of the CRPD on the state of prisoners\u27 rights law in a US domestic context. In this paper, we raise that question, and offer some tentative conclusions