Katti-Batti : a digital tool for young adolescents to transgress the limitations of gender socialization through empathy & friendship

The genesis of this project lies in the personal experiences that led me to believe that the culturally learned and perceived gender roles, norms, and expectations limit a person’s health, educational, professional, economic, and social abilities. The work began by finding the evidence connecting the learned, perceived gender roles, norms, and allied cultural expectations to the ability to think freely. The research revealed the limiting effects of gender roles and norms on self-identity, personal belief systems, and a place’s culture. The study further led to uncovering the link between limiting personal belief systems and cultural environment to the lack of openness of a person to receive new knowledge and ideas. This lack of openness was then identified to impair an individual’s decision-making ability, which ultimately negatively affects the ability to self-actualize. Gender Socialization was identified as a fundamental process that leads to the exposure, development, adoption, and conformity to the limiting gender roles, norms, stereotypes, and expectations. Research and expert consultations led to identifying continuous consciousness-raising about gender socialization and stereotype conformity as an efficacious strategy to break the gendered lenses. The early adolescence (12-15 yr.) age group was identified as a window of opportunity to mitigate the effects of gender socialization because of the physical, cognitive, and behavioral changes that occur at this age. In response to this opportunity, initial concept development, prototyping, and testing of a digital tool intended to evoke thought on the topic were accomplished. The tool is designed with the intention to make a complex subject matter accessible and relatable to young adolescents. The goal is to help them reflect on their own biases and gradually become aware of the effects of gender socialization on their choices and decision-making. The emotions of friendship and empathy are used as vehicles to highlight the significance of breaking deeply gendered outlooks

Generation, Verification, and Attacks on Elliptic Curves and their Applications in Signal Protocol

Elliptic curves (EC) are widely studied due to their mathematical and cryptographic properties. Cryptographers have used the properties of EC to construct elliptic curve cryptosystems (ECC). ECC are based on the assumption of hardness of special instances of the discrete logarithm problem in EC. One of the strong merits of ECC is providing the same cryptographic strength with smaller key size compared to other public key cryptosystems. A 256 bit ECC can provide similar cryptographic strength as a 3072 bit RSA cryptosystem. Due to smaller key sizes, elliptic curves are an attractive option in devices with limited storage capacity. It is therefore essential to understand how to generate these curves, verify their correctness and assure that they are resistant against attacks. The security of an EC cryptosystem is determined by the choice of the curve that is used in that cryptosystem. Over the years, a number of elliptic curves were introduced for cryptographic use. Elliptic curves such as FRP256V1, NIST P-256, Secp256k1 or SM2 curve are widely used in many applications like cryptocurrencies, transport layer protocol and Internet messaging applications. Another type of popular curves are Curve25519 introduced by Dan Bernstein and Curve448 introduced by Mike Hamburg, which are used in an end to end encryption protocol called Signal. This protocol is used in popular messaging applications like WhatsApp, Signal Messenger and Facebook Messenger. Recently, there has been a growing distrust among security researchers against the previously standardized curves. We have seen backdoors in the elliptic curve cryptosystems like the DUAL_EC_DRBG function that was standardized by NIST, and suspicious random seeds that were used in NIST P-curves. We can say that many of the previously standardized curves lack transparency in their generation and verification. We focus on transparent generation and verification of elliptic curves. We generate curves based on NIST standards and propose new standards to generate special types of elliptic curves. We test their resistance against the known attacks that target the ECC. Finally, we demonstrate ECDLP attacks on small curves with weak structure

A Novel Techniques for Classification of Musical Instruments

Musical instrument classification provides a framework for developing and evaluating features for any type of content-based analysis of musical signals. Signal is subjected to wavelet decomposition. A suitable wavelet is selected for decomposition. In our work for decomposition we used Wavelet Packet transform. After the wavelet decomposition, some sub band signals can be analyzed, particular band can be representing the particular characteristics of musical signal. Finally these wavelet features set were formed and then musical instrument will be classified by using suitable machine learning algorithm (classifier). In this paper, the problem of classifying of musical instruments is addressed.  We propose a new musical instrument classification method based on wavelet represents both local and global information by computing wavelet coefficients at different frequency sub bands with different resolutions. Using wavelet packet transform (WPT) along with advanced machine learning techniques, accuracy of music instrument classification has been significantly improved. Keywords: Musical instrument classification, WPT, Feature Extraction Techniques, Machine learning techniques

Effective passivation of c-Si by intrinsic a-Si:H layer for hit solar cells

The influence of HF solution etching on surface roughness of c-Si wafer was investigated using AFM. Ultra thin(2-3 nm) intrinsic a-Si:H is necessary to achieve high VOC and Fill factor, as it effectively passivates the defects on the surface of c-Si and increase tunneling probability of minority charge carriers. However, to achieve control over ultra-thin intrinsic a-Si:H layer thickness and passivation properties, the films were deposited by Hot-wire CVD. We used tantalum filament and silane (SiH4) as a precursor gas, where as the deposition parameter such as filament temperature temperature was varied. The deposition rate, Dark and Photoconductivity were measured for all the films. The optimized intrinsic a-Si:H layer was inserted between p typed doped layers and n type c-Si wafers to fabricate HIT solar cells. The Current-Voltage characteristics were studied to understand the passivation effect of intrinsic layer on c-Si surface. The high saturation current density (Jsat > 10–7 A/cm2) and Ideality factor (n > 2) were observed. We achieved the efficiency of 3.28 % with the optimized intrinsic and doped a-Si:H layers using HWCVD technique. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/2794

Study of Electrical, Optical and Structural Properties of Al- Doped ZnO Thin Films on PEN Substrates

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO), as one of the most promising transparent conducting oxide (TCO) material, has now been widely used in thin film solar cells. Most of the study of AZO films till date has been done on glass substrates but nowadays there is a growing interest in replacing glass with polymer substrate for the thin-film solar cell technology and many other flexible optoelectronic devices. In this study, AZO thin films were deposited at room temperature by RF magnetron sputtering on flexible substrates from a 3 inch diameter target of 2 wt % Al2O3 in zinc oxide. The effect of RF power on the structural, optical and electrical properties of AZO films was investigated by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Hall measurement, and UV-visible spectrophotometery. The XRD data indicates a preferential c-axis orientation for all the films. All films exhibit high transmittance ( 85%) in visible region. Films deposited at 60 W power exhibit lowest resistivity of 1.2 10 – 3 Ωcm. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/3102

Computational modeling of viscoelastic backsheet materials for photovoltaics

The viscoelastic response of backsheet materials significantly affects the durability of the photovoltaic (PV) module. In this study, the viscoelastic response of commercially available backsheet materials is experimentally characterized and computationally modeled. An extensive viscoelastic experimental study on backsheet materials is carried out, considering the temperature-dependent properties for characterizing the mechanical properties. Based on an experimental campaign, small-strain viscoelastic models based on the Prony-series (PS) and Fractional Calculus (FC) Models are proposed here. The form of the constitutive equations for both models is summarized, and the finite element implementation is described in detail. Following identifications of relevant material parameters, we validate the model with the experimental data that shows good predictability. A comparative study of model responses under different loading conditions is also reported to assess the advantages and disadvantages of both models. Such an extensive experimental study and constitutive modeling will help design and simulate a more comprehensive modeling of PV modules, as illustrated by the benchmark problems

Survey on Reducing Power Consumption in Peer to Peer System

Today, it is very crucial to reduce the consumption of natural resources, such as petroleum. In information system need of reducing electrical power consumption have been raised. There is large scope for reducing power consumption in network based applications. There are many solutions how to reduce the power consumption by servers e.g. by turning off servers which are not required to execute the requests. In this paper, we surveyed how the Round Robin Algorithm and Consumption Laxity Based Algorithm are used to reduce the power consumption of server in peer to peer system and their demerits also

A review on self-emulsified drug delivery system

Improving oral bioavailability of low poorly water soluble drugs using self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) possess significant potential. Oral bioavailability of hydrophobic drugs can be improved using SEDDS, and appears most promising. Their dispersion in gastro intestinal (GI) fluid after administration forms micro or nano emulsified drug which gets easily absorbed through lymphatic pathways bypassing the hepatic first pass metabolism. Parameters like surfactant concentration, oil to surfactant ratio, polarity of emulsion, droplet size and charge on droplet plays a critical role in oral absorption of drug from SEDDS. For hydrophobic drug substances that exhibit dissolution step as rate limiting for absorption, SEDDS offer an improvement in rate and extent of absorption and gives more reproducible plasma concentration time profiles. Use of combined in vitro dispersion and digestion methodologies has enabled a much improved understanding of role of intestinal lipid processing on solubilization behavior of lipid based drug delivery systems (LBDDS). The article gives a brief view on the solid lipid nanoparticles and its evaluation

Literature Review on Hole Detection and Healing in Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract The emerging technology of wireless sensor network (WSN