The electronic band structure and optical properties of boron arsenide

We compute the electronic band structure and optical properties of boron arsenide using the relativistic quasiparticle self-consistent $GW$ approach, including electron-hole interactions through solution of the Bethe-Salpeter equation. We also calculate its electronic and optical properties using standard and hybrid density functional theory. We demonstrate that the inclusion of self-consistency and vertex corrections provides substantial improvement in the calculated band features, in particular when comparing our results to previous calculations using the single-shot $GW$ approach and various DFT methods, from which a considerable scatter in the calculated indirect and direct band gaps has been observed. We find that BAs has an indirect gap of 1.674 eV and a direct gap of 3.990 eV, consistent with experiment and other comparable computational studies. Hybrid DFT reproduces the indirect gap well, but provides less accurate values for other band features, including spin-orbit splittings. Our computed Born effective charges and dielectric constants confirm the unusually covalent bonding characteristics of this III-V system.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

EviPlant: An efficient digital forensic challenge creation, manipulation and distribution solution

Education and training in digital forensics requires a variety of suitable challenge corpora containing realistic features including regular wear-and-tear, background noise, and the actual digital traces to be discovered during investigation. Typically, the creation of these challenges requires overly arduous effort on the part of the educator to ensure their viability. Once created, the challenge image needs to be stored and distributed to a class for practical training. This storage and distribution step requires significant time and resources and may not even be possible in an online/distance learning scenario due to the data sizes involved. As part of this paper, we introduce a more capable methodology and system as an alternative to current approaches. EviPlant is a system designed for the efficient creation, manipulation, storage and distribution of challenges for digital forensics education and training. The system relies on the initial distribution of base disk images, i.e., images containing solely base operating systems. In order to create challenges for students, educators can boot the base system, emulate the desired activity and perform a "diffing" of resultant image and the base image. This diffing process extracts the modified artefacts and associated metadata and stores them in an "evidence package". Evidence packages can be created for different personae, different wear-and-tear, different emulated crimes, etc., and multiple evidence packages can be distributed to students and integrated into the base images. A number of additional applications in digital forensic challenge creation for tool testing and validation, proficiency testing, and malware analysis are also discussed as a result of using EviPlant.Comment: Digital Forensic Research Workshop Europe 201

An Escherichia coli effector protein promotes host mutation via depletion of DNA mismatch repair proteins.

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) is an attaching and effacing (A/E) human pathogen that causes diarrhea during acute infection, and it can also sustain asymptomatic colonization. A/E E. coli depletes host cell DNA mismatch repair (MMR) proteins in colonic cell lines and has been detected in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. However, until now, a direct link between infection and host mutagenesis has not been fully demonstrated. Here we show that the EPEC-secreted effector protein EspF is critical for complete EPEC-induced depletion of MMR proteins. The mechanism of EspF activity on MMR protein was posttranscriptional and dependent on EspF mitochondrial targeting. EPEC infection also induced EspF-independent elevation of host reactive oxygen species levels. Moreover, EPEC infection significantly increased spontaneous mutation frequency in host cells, and this effect was dependent on mitochondrially targeted EspF. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that A/E E. coli can promote colorectal carcinogenesis in humans

Self-regulation mechanism for charged point defects in hybrid halide perovskites

Hybrid halide perovskites such as methylammonium lead iodide (CH3NH3PbI3) exhibit unusually low free carrier concentrations despite being processed at low-temperatures from solution. We demonstrate, through quantum mechanical calculations, that the origin of this phenomenon is a prevalence of ionic over electronic disorder in stoichiometric materials. Schottky defect formation provides a mechanism to self-regulate the concentration of charge carriers through ionic compensation of charged point defects. The equilibrium charged vacancy concentration is predicted to exceed 0.4% at room temperature. This behaviour, which goes against established defect conventions for inorganic semiconductors, has implications for photovoltaic performance

Cranial morphology of the Plio-Pleistocene giant madtsoiid snake Wonambi naracoortensis

New material and additional morphological details of a rare and phylogenetically significant large fossil snake, Wonambi naracoortensis Smith, 1976, are described from Pleistocene and Pliocene cave deposits in southern South Australia. The new data refute some previous interpretations of the morphology of this species, and have implications for the phylogenetic position of Wonambi relative to extant snakes and other fossils, including other Madtsoiidae. The nature of contacts among palatal, braincase, snout, and mandibular elements imply similar functional attributes to those of extant anilioid snakes: maxillae from multiple individuals show corrugated contact surfaces for the prefrontal, implying a tight suture; structures on the anterior and medial surfaces of the palatine choanal process are interpreted as forming extensive contacts with the vomer and parasphenoid; and the distinctly bounded facets on the basipterygoid processes and pterygoid imply little or no capacity for anteroposterior sliding of the palatopterygoid arch, hence absence of the macrostomatan 'pterygoid walk'. On the frontal, interolfactory pillars were either absent or very slender, and a deep, sculptured contact surface for the nasal implies a prokinetic joint was also absent. Margins of the frontal and parietal indicate broad entry of the sphenoid into the ophthalmic fenestra, as in Dinilysia. Similarity of elements and features of the braincase (trigeminal foramen, ear region, and basipterygoid processes) with both lizards and extant snakes show that differences between snakes and other squamates have sometimes been overstated. The case for macrostomatan affinities of Wonambi is not supported by new evidence.John D. Scanlo

Real-time head nod and shake detection for continuous human affect recognition

Human affect recognition is the field of study associated with using automatic techniques to identify human emotion or human affective state. A person’s affective states is often communicated non-verbally through body language. A large part of human body language communication is the use of head gestures. Almost all cultures use subtle head movements to convey meaning. Two of the most common and distinct head gestures are the head nod and the head shake gestures. In this paper we present a robust system to automatically detect head nod and shakes. We employ the Microsoft Kinect and utilise discrete Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) as the backbone to a to a machine learning based classifier within the system. The system achieves 86% accuracy on test datasets and results are provided

Backbone and side chain H-1, N-15 and C-13 assignments for the oxidised and reduced forms of the oxidoreductase protein DsbA from Staphylococcus aureus

The function and dynamics of the thiol-disulfide oxidoreductase DsbA in the low-GC gram positive bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, are yet to be elucidated. Here we report 13C, 15N and 1H assignments for the oxidised and reduced forms of SaDsbA as a prelude to further studies on the enzyme

Interface stoichiometry control to improve device voltage and modify band alignment in ZnO/Cu_2O heterojunction solar cells

The interface stoichiometry of cuprous oxide (Cu_2O) was controlled by adjusting the O_2 and Zn partial pressures during ZnO sputter deposition and measured by high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of ultrathin (<3 nm) ZnO films on Cu_2O. Open-circuit voltage measurements for ZnO/Cu_2O heterojunctions under AM1.5 illumination were measured and it was found that a stoichiometric interface can achieve the voltage entitlement dictated by the band alignment, whereas the non-stoichiometric interface showed large open-circuit voltage deficits. These results highlight not only the need for stoichiometric interfaces in Cu_2O devices, but also a reproducible experimental method for achieving stoichiometric interfaces that could be applied to any potential heterojunction partner. Additionally, valence-band offset measurements indicated changing the interface stoichiometry shifted the band alignment between Cu_2O and ZnO, which accounts for the variation in previously reported band offset values