The Role of Nature Patterns in the Perception and Acceptability of Rural Density.

Continuing current low density patterns of housing development would have significant environmental impact. The urgency of adopting higher-density patterns, however, runs counter to what is acceptable to the public, especially in rural areas. Though it is widely assumed that the opposition is to density, the concerns may be about a wide range of factors that can be addressed in ways that would achieve greater environmental sustainability. The purposes of this dissertation are to (1) disentangle some of these concerns from density, and (2) address these concerns via design, policy, and participatory approaches in order to offset the perceived negative impacts of increasing density. In particular, the focus is on patterns that address the importance that the natural environment affords rural residents. Rural residents in Southeastern Michigan completed a survey that included 16 scenes of residential developments, varying in density as well as the arrangement of housing and nature on the parcel. Their ratings of the acceptability of each scene as well as attitudes regarding a variety of planning approaches that might offset the perceived negative impacts of a hypothetical dense development were related to geo-coded and other environmental information. Results show that acceptability is significantly affected by the pattern of vegetation; scenes showing clustered housing with expanses of forest cover are more acceptable than developments that have the same number of houses evenly dispersed. Independent ratings of the developments for perceived density also show that integrating forest cover reduces the perceived level of density. Responses to the planning approaches suggest that preserving local landscapes is more important to rural residents than reducing traffic, promoting mixed residential and commercial land uses, and other strategies that are popular in urban areas. Examination of rural experience provides further insights for understanding the variation in responses. These results suggest that the perceived negative impacts of higher density can be mitigated by a variety of strategies that emphasize the preservation of nature. Given the environmental impact of low density residential development, such straightforward approaches can simultaneously address citizen concerns and advance the requirements of sustainability.Ph.D.Natural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64786/1/abasu_1.pd

Unlocking Hardware Security Assurance: The Potential of LLMs

System-on-Chips (SoCs) form the crux of modern computing systems. SoCs enable high-level integration through the utilization of multiple Intellectual Property (IP) cores. However, the integration of multiple IP cores also presents unique challenges owing to their inherent vulnerabilities, thereby compromising the security of the entire system. Hence, it is imperative to perform hardware security validation to address these concerns. The efficiency of this validation procedure is contingent on the quality of the SoC security properties provided. However, generating security properties with traditional approaches often requires expert intervention and is limited to a few IPs, thereby resulting in a time-consuming and non-robust process. To address this issue, we, for the first time, propose a novel and automated Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based Security Property Generator (NSPG). Specifically, our approach utilizes hardware documentation in order to propose the first hardware security-specific language model, HS-BERT, for extracting security properties dedicated to hardware design. To evaluate our proposed technique, we trained the HS-BERT model using sentences from RISC-V, OpenRISC, MIPS, OpenSPARC, and OpenTitan SoC documentation. When assessedb on five untrained OpenTitan hardware IP documents, NSPG was able to extract 326 security properties from 1723 sentences. This, in turn, aided in identifying eight security bugs in the OpenTitan SoC design presented in the hardware hacking competition, Hack@DAC 2022

Where People Meet the Muck: An Integrated Assessment of Beach Muck and Public Perception at the Bay City State Recreation Area, Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron

In several regions of the Great Lakes, including Saginaw Bay, the proliferation of muck, decaying organics largely from aquatic plants such as Cladophora, has washed ashore, and is blamed for negatively affecting water quality and economic losses in the region. The current view is that excess nutrient loading into the system is a leading cause of this type of organic debris, though changes in food web dynamics may also be a contributing factor. Through an Integrated Assessment (IA) framework, we summarized the current state of knowledge on the causes and consequences of muck conditions at the Bay City State Recreation Area (BCSRA), including the socio-economic impacts of muck at the park and on the Saginaw Bay Region. Through this framework we identify potential management scenarios for addressing beach fouling at the BCSRA. Through a robust stakeholder engagement process, the IA team implemented a suite of models and surveys to understand public perception of muck-related issues and identified a series of feasible short and long-term management actions that could help alleviate and better manage the impacts of muck. Results indicate that even drastic reductions in external phosphorus loads will not eliminate Cladophora growth in the bay. Beach muck is likely a historical part of the system, and nutrient reduction programs may not prevent muck from fouling Saginaw Bay beaches. We identify a sustainable park management practice maybe reallocating resources previously designated for cleaning efforts to achieve bare, sandy beaches and promoting alternative ecological activities and attractions such as bird watching, kayaking, and nature walks in the park’s coastal marshes

Self-Assembly of an Organized Cementum-Periodontal Ligament-Like Complex Using Scaffold-Free Tissue Engineering

A major challenge in regenerating periodontal tissues is emulating its complex structure containing both mineralized and soft tissues. In this study, scaffold-free tissue constructs engineered using periodontal ligament cells (PDLCs), which contain a population of adult stem/progenitor cells, self-assembled into an organized multi-tissue structure comprising a mineralized cementum-like core enclosed within a periodontal ligament (PDL)-like tissue. Scaffold-free engineered constructs were formed by culturing human PDLCs to form a cell sheet on six-well dishes containing two minutien pins placed 7 mm apart. The cell sheet was contracted by the cells to roll into the pins forming a cylindrical construct anchored on either end by the pins. These tissues were approximately 1 mm in diameter and 7 mm long and contained only the cells and their endogenous matrix. These scaffold-free engineered constructs exhibited two structurally distinct tissues, one in the center of the construct and another on the periphery. The center tissue was mineralized and expressed alkaline phosphatase and bone sialoprotein, similar to cementum. The peripheral tissue was not calcified and expressed periodontal ligament-associated protein-1 and periostin, which is characteristic of the periodontal ligament. This tissue organization was seen after in vitro culture and maintained in vivo following subcutaneous implantation in immunocompromised mice. These data demonstrate that scaffold-free tissue engineering facilitates PDLCs to self-assemble into an organized cementum-PDL-like complex. These engineered tissues could be used as implantable grafts to regenerate damaged periodontal tissues or as model systems to study PDLC biology and mechanisms driving organized tissue assembly within the periodontium

vProtein: Identifying Optimal Amino Acid Complements from Plant-Based Foods

Background: Indispensible amino acids (IAAs) are used by the body in different proportions. Most animal-based foods provide these IAAs in roughly the needed proportions, but many plant-based foods provide different proportions of IAAs. To explore how these plant-based foods can be better used in human nutrition, we have created the computational tool vProtein to identify optimal food complements to satisfy human protein needs. Methods: vProtein uses 1251 plant-based foods listed in the United States Department of Agriculture standard release 22 database to determine the quantity of each food or pair of foods required to satisfy human IAA needs as determined by the 2005 daily recommended intake. The quantity of food in a pair is found using a linear programming approach that minimizes total calories, total excess IAAs, or the total weight of the combination. Results: For single foods, vProtein identifies foods with particularly balanced IAA patterns such as wheat germ, quinoa, and cauliflower. vProtein also identifies foods with particularly unbalanced IAA patterns such as macadamia nuts, degermed corn products, and wakame seaweed. Although less useful alone, some unbalanced foods provide unusually good complements, such as Brazil nuts to legumes. Interestingly, vProtein finds no statistically significant bias toward grain/ legume pairings for protein complementation. These analyses suggest that pairings of plant-based foods should be based on the individual foods themselves instead of based on broader food group-food group pairings. Overall, the most efficien

Identification of Response Options to Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Ghana via the Delphi Process

The Delphi technique is a means of facilitating discussion among experts in order to develop consensus, and can be used for policy formulation. This article describes a modified Delphi approach in which 27 multi-disciplinary academics and 22 stakeholders from Ghana and North America were polled about ways to address negative effects of small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Ghana. In early 2014, the academics, working in disciplinary groups, synthesized 17 response options based on data aggregated during an Integrated Assessment of ASGM in Ghana. The researchers participated in two rounds of Delphi polling in March and April 2014, during which 17 options were condensed into 12. Response options were rated via a 4-point Likert scale in terms of benefit (economic, environmental, and benefit to people) and feasibility (economic, social/cultural, political, and implementation). The six highest-scoring options populated a third Delphi poll, which 22 stakeholders from diverse sectors completed in April 2015. The academics and stakeholders also prioritized the response options using ranking exercises. The technique successfully gauged expert opinion on ASGM, and helped identify potential responses, policies and solutions for the sector. This is timely given that improvement to the ASGM sector is an important component within the UN Minamata Convention