Resumption of Alteration at High Temperature and pH: Rates Measurements and Comparison with Initial Rates

AbstractResumption of alteration – corresponding to a sharp increase of glass aqueous corrosion rate – is observed under specific experimental conditions of high pH and temperature. This phenomenon may occur with long duration time, making very difficult to foresee its appearance time and rate. In this study, leach tests performed with the International Simple Glass (ISG) at high buffered pH and 90°C show that the lower is the pH, the later is the resumption of alteration and the lower is the dissolution rate. Under the experimental conditions of this study, the resumption of alteration rate is an order of magnitude lower than the initial dissolution rate and two orders of magnitude higher than the rate of the “plateau stage” preceding the sharp increase of the corrosion rate

Thoroughly analyzing the use of ring oscillators for on-chip hardware trojan detection

International audienceWith the globalization of the IC design flow, structural integrity verification to detect parasitic electrical activities has emerged as an important research domain for testing the genuineness of an Integrated Circuit (IC). Sensors like Ring Oscil-lators (RO) have been proposed to precisely monitor the internal behaviour of the ICs. In this paper we propose an experimental analysis of the impact of parasitic electrical activities on the frequencies of ROs and on the internal supply voltages measured. Our observations lead us to identify the limits of the usability of ROs for practical and embedded detection of Hardware Trojans

Extraction of intrinsic structure for Hardware Trojan detection

Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2015/912In this paper we present a novel solution to address the problem of potential malicious circuitry on FPGA. This method is based on an a technique of structure extraction which consider the infection of an all lot. This structure is related to the design (place and route, power grid...) of the integrated circuits which composes the lot. In case of additional circuitry this design will be modify and the extracted structure will be affected. After developing the extraction techniques we present a method- ology to insert detection of hardware trojan and counterfeit in different IC manufacturing steps. At last an application example using 30 FPGA boards validate our extraction method. Finally, statistical tools are then applied on the experimental results to distinguish a genuine lot from an infected one and confirm the potential of detection the extracted structure

Sca1, a previously undescribed paralog from autotransporter protein-encoding genes in Rickettsia species

BACKGROUND: Among the 17 genes encoding autotransporter proteins of the "surface cell antigen" (sca) family in the currently sequenced Rickettsia genomes, ompA, sca5 (ompB) and sca4 (gene D), have been extensively used for identification and phylogenetic purposes for Rickettsia species. However, none of these genes is present in all 20 currently validated Rickettsia species. Of the remaining 14 sca genes, sca1 is the only gene to be present in all nine sequenced Rickettsia genomes. To estimate whether the sca1 gene is present in all Rickettsia species and its usefulness as an identification and phylogenetic tool, we searched for sca1genes in the four published Rickettsia genomes and amplified and sequenced this gene in the remaining 16 validated Rickettsia species. RESULTS: Sca1 is the only one of the 17 rickettsial sca genes present in all 20 Rickettsia species. R. prowazekii and R. canadensis exhibit a split sca1 gene whereas the remaining species have a complete gene. Within the sca1 gene, we identified a 488-bp variable sequence fragment that can be amplified using a pair of conserved primers. Sequences of this fragment are specific for each Rickettsia species. The phylogenetic organization of Rickettsia species inferred from the comparison of sca1 sequences strengthens the classification based on the housekeeping gene gltA and is similar to those obtained from the analyses of ompA, sca5 and sca4, thus suggesting similar evolutionary constraints. We also observed that Sca1 protein sequences have evolved under a dual selection pressure: with the exception of typhus group rickettsiae, the amino-terminal part of the protein that encompasses the predicted passenger domain, has evolved under positive selection in rickettsiae. This suggests that the Sca1 protein interacts with the host. In contrast, the C-terminal portion containing the autotransporter domain has evolved under purifying selection. In addition, sca1 is transcribed in R. conorii, and might therefore be functional in this species. CONCLUSION: The sca1 gene, encoding an autotransporter protein that evolves under dual evolution pressure, is the only sca-family gene to be conserved by all Rickettsia species. As such, it is a valuable identification target for these bacteria, especially because rickettsial isolates can be identified by amplification and sequencing of a discriminatory gene fragment using a single primer pair. It may also be used as a phylogenetic tool. However, its current functional status remains to be determined although it was found expressed in R. conorii

Mixed pairing symmetry in \kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2 X organic superconductors from ultrasonic velocity measurements

Discontinuities in elastic constants are detected at the superconducting transition of layered organic conductors \kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_{2}X by longitudinal and transverse ultrasonic velocity measurements. Symmetry arguments show that discontinuities in shear elastic constants can be explained in the orthorhombic compound only if the superconducting order parameter has a mixed character that can be of two types, either A_{1g}+B_{1g} or B_{2g}+B_{3g} in the classification of irreducible representations of the orthorhombic point group D_{2h}. Consistency with other measurements suggests that the A_{1g}+B_{1g} (d_{xy}+d_{z(x+y)}) possibility is realized. Such clear symmetry-imposed signatures of mixed order parameters have not been observed in other superconducting compounds.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX,3 figure

Comportement mécanique à haute température des aciers martensitiques revenus pour application aux réacteurs à neutrons rapides

National audienceLa conception du futur réacteur à neutrons rapides à caloporteur sodium (SFR) a motivé de nombreuses études sur le comportement en fatigue, fluage et fatigue-fluage à haute température d'aciers martensitiques revenus (450-600°C). Depuis les années 80, l'instab ilité de leur microstructure dans certaines conditions de chargement (fatigue, fluage) a été mise en évidence dans la littérature. Cette instabilité conduit à un adoucissement qu'il convient de comprendre et de prédire. Nous avons particulièrement étudié l'effet des chargements caractéristiques des conditions en service auxquelles seront soumis les composants du réacteur SFR (faibles amplitudes de déformation cycliques, longues durées de vie en fluage), pour lesquelles les données expérimentales sont rares. Des évolutions microstructurales et un adoucissement notable ont été mis en évidence dans ces conditions. Des modèles micromécaniques basés sur les densités de dislocations continus permettent de prédire qualitativement un grand nombre des phénomènes observés

High temperature mechanical strength and microstructural stability of advanced 9-12%Cr steels and ODS steels

International audienceThe present study proposes a comparison between several martensitic and ferritic steels in terms of creep strength and cyclic softening effect. The damage mechanisms are identified using fractographic observations and the microstructural evolutions are observed by TEM. The effects of a modified chemical composition on the high temperature mechanical behaviour are studied

Radiative transfer and spectroscopic databases: A line-sampling Monte Carlo approach

Issu de : Eurotherm conference n° 105 - Computational thermal radiation in participating media V, Albi, FRANCE, 1-3 April 2015International audienceDealing with molecular-state transitions for radiative transfer purposes involves two successive steps that both reach the complexity level at which physicists start thinking about statistical approaches: (1) constructing line-shaped absorption spectra as the result of very numerous state-transitions, (2) integrating over optical-path domains. For the first time, we show here how these steps can be addressed simultaneously using the null-collision concept. This opens the door to the design of Monte Carlo codes directly estimating radiative transfer observables from spectroscopic databases. The intermediate step of producing accurate high-resolution absorption spectra is no longer required. A Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed and applied to six one-dimensional test cases. It allows the computation of spectrally integrated intensities (over 25 cm−1 bands or the full IR range) in a few seconds, regardless of the retained database and line model. But free parameters need to be selected and they impact the convergence. A first possible selection is provided in full detail. We observe that this selection is highly satisfactory for quite distinct atmospheric and combustion configurations, but a more systematic exploration is still in progress