A Brief Review on Fundamentals of Conductive Polymer (CPs)

Polymers are huge compounds made up of numerous monomers (repeatedsubunits). They have similar macro and micro properties, as well aselectrical transport qualities, semiconductive capabilities, and opticalfeatures. With the advent of conductive polyacetylene, conductivepolymers have gotten a lot of interest. These conductors have a wide rangeof electrical conductivity, which may be produced by doping, while beingmechanically flexible and having a high thermal stability. Polymers may becreated using a variety of methods, including chemical and electrochemicalpolymerization. With advancement in material stability and greaterproperty control, an increasing variety of new applications are now beinginvestigated

The TypTop System:Personalized Typo-Tolerant Password Checking

Password checking systems traditionally allow login only if the correct password is submitted. Recent work on typo-tolerant password checking suggests that usability can be improved, with negligible security loss, by allowing a small number of typographical errors. Existing systems, however, can only correct a handful of errors, such as accidentally leaving caps lock on or incorrect capitalization of the first letter in a password. This leaves out numerous kinds of typos made by users, such as transposition errors, substitutions, or capitalization errors elsewhere in a password. Some users therefore receive no benefit from existing typo-tolerance mechanisms. We introduce personalized typo-tolerant password checking. In our approach, the authentication system learns over time the typos made by a specific user. In experiments using Mechanical Turk, we show that 45% of users would benefit from personalization. We therefore design a system, called TypTop, that securely implements personalized typo-tolerance. Underlying TypTop is a new stateful password-based encryption scheme that can be used to store recent failed login attempts. Our formal analysis shows that security in the face of an attacker that obtains the state of the system reduces to the difficulty of a brute-force dictionary attack against the real password. We implement TypTop for Linux and Mac OS login and report on a proof-of-concept deployment

Polycystic ovary syndrome, blood group & diet: A correlative study in South Indian females

Aim: To find out the co-relation between polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) with blood group & diet in South Indian females, between the age-group of (20-30) years. Objectives: Correlative analysis of ABO & Rh system, dietary habits & alcohol consumption with PCOS. Materials & Methods: 100 patients between (20-30) years, diagnosed with PCOS were selected. A standard PCOS questionnaire was given. Blood group & dietary status data were collected. Patients were grouped according to ABO & Rh system considering their diet & alcohol intake (p≤0.05 significant). Result: Our data revealed that the highest risk of PCOS was observed in females with blood group ‘O’ positive followed by ‘B’ positive who were on mixed diet & used to consume alcohol. Our study also suggests that Rh negative individuals didn’t show any association with PCOS. Conclusion: The results of our study suggest that ‘O’ positive females, are more prone to PCOS. Though the relative frequency of B positive individuals are more in India, females with blood group O positive are more susceptible to PCOS, contributing factors being mixed diet & alcohol intake. So, early screening of ‘O’ positive &‘B’ positive females of reproductive age-group in South-India, could be used as a measure for timely diagnosis of PCOS, better management &also prevention of complications. However, further research should be done to investigate the multifaceted mechanisms triggering these effects

A Comparison of Multiple Machine Learning Algorithms to Predict Whole-Body Vibration Exposure of Dumper Operators in Iron Ore Mines in India

Background: This study deals with some factors that influence the exposure of whole-body vibration (WBV) of dumper operators in surface mines. The study also highlights the approach to improve the multivariate linear analysis outcomes when collinearity exists between certain factor pairs. Material and Methods: A total number of 130 vibration readings was taken from two adjacent surface iron ore mines. The frequency-weighted RMS acceleration was used for the WBV exposure assessment of the dumper operators. The factors considered in this study are age, weight, seat backrest height, awkward posture, the machine age, load tonnage, dumper speed and haul road condition. Four machine learning models were explored through the empirical training-testing approach. Results: The bootstrap linear regression model was found to be the best model based on performance and predictability when compared to multiple linear regression, LASSO regression, and decision tree. Results revealed that multiple factors influence WBV exposure. The significant factors are: weight of operators (regression coefficient β=-0.005, p\u3c0.001), awkward posture (β=0.033, p\u3c0.001), load tonnage (β=-0.026, p\u3c0.05), dumper speed (β=0.008, p\u3c0.001) and poor haul road condition (β=0.015, p\u3c0.001). Conclusion: The bootstrap linear regression model produced efficient results for the dataset which was characterized by collinearity. WBV exposure is multifactorial. Regular monitoring of WBV exposure and corrective actions through appropriate prevention programs including the ergonomic design of the seat would increase the health and safety of operators

Compact: Approximating Complex Activation Functions for Secure Computation

Secure multi-party computation (MPC) techniques can be used to provide data privacy when users query deep neural network (DNN) models hosted on a public cloud. State-of-the-art MPC techniques can be directly leveraged for DNN models that use simple activation functions (AFs) such as ReLU. However, DNN model architectures designed for cutting-edge applications often use complex and highly non-linear AFs. Designing efficient MPC techniques for such complex AFs is an open problem. Towards this, we propose Compact, which produces piece-wise polynomial approximations of complex AFs to enable their efficient use with state-of-the-art MPC techniques. Compact neither requires nor imposes any restriction on model training and results in near-identical model accuracy. We extensively evaluate Compact on four different machine-learning tasks with DNN architectures that use popular complex AFs SiLU, GeLU, and Mish. Our experimental results show that Compact incurs negligible accuracy loss compared to DNN-specific approaches for handling complex non-linear AFs. We also incorporate Compact in two state-of-the-art MPC libraries for privacy-preserving inference and demonstrate that Compact provides 2x-5x speedup in computation compared to the state-of-the-art approximation approach for non-linear functions -- while providing similar or better accuracy for DNN models with large number of hidden layer

Iron supplement use in pregnancy – are the right women taking the right amount?

Objectives: To examine the prevalence and determinants of iron supplement use and the amount of iron consumed from iron-containing supplements. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed in antenatal clinics in two tertiary hospitals in Sydney, Australia between January and March 2014. Results: Of 612 (91% response rate) pregnant women, 589 with complete data were analysed. The overall prevalence of iron-containing supplement use was 88.0%, of which 70.1% was MV only, 7.2% was iron-only and 22.2% was both. Use of iron-containing supplements was associated with increased gestational age, a diagnosis of anaemia or iron deficiency (ID) in the current pregnancy and pre-pregnancy use of an iron-containing supplement. Several risk factors for ID or anaemia such as on-red meat eating and previous miscarriage were not associated with current iron supplement use. About 65% of women diagnosed with ID, and 62.3% of women diagnosed with anaemia were taking an iron-only supplement, with or without a MV. The proportion of women consuming low (<30), preventative (30-99) and treatment (≥100) mg/day doses were 36.8%, 45.4%, and 17.8%, respectively. Only 46.7% of women diagnosed with ID were taking ≥100 mg/day iron from supplements, while 23.3% were taking <30 mg/day. Conclusion: Women are consuming varying doses of iron and some high-risk women are taking inadequate doses of iron to prevent or treat ID or iron deficiency anaemia. Healthcare professionals are best positioned to advise women on iron supplement use in pregnancy and should educate women individually about the type and dose of supplement best suited to their needs.NHMR