Intelligent intrusion detection system in smart grid using computational intelligence and machine learning

Smart grid systems enhanced the capability of traditional power networks while being vulnerable to different types of cyber-attacks. These vulnerabilities could cause attackers to crash into the network breaching the integrity and confidentiality of the smart grid systems. Therefore, an intrusion detection system (IDS) becomes an important way to provide a secure and reliable services in a smart grid environment. This article proposes a feature-based IDS for smart grid systems. The proposed system performance is evaluated in terms of accuracy, intrusion detection rate (DR), and false alarm rate (FAR). The obtained results show that the random forest and neural network classifiers have outperformed other classifiers. We have achieved a 0.5% FAR on KDD99 dataset and a 0.08% FAR on the NSLKDD dataset. The DR and the testing accuracy on average are 99% for both datasets

Exploring Takfir, Its Origins and Contemporary Use: The Case of Takfiri Approach in Daesh’s Media

Muslims have been the primary targets of Daesh’s attacks since 2014 in different countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. These attacks were based on its takfiri ideology. As Daesh official media and documents indicate, kufr (unbelief, infidelity) in Daesh’s approach is not limited to non-Muslims (original disbelievers), but Muslims are the most significant parts of kuffar (unbelievers) in its view and defined as incidental disbelievers. Through studying Daesh’s official documents and various Arabic, English, and Persian media productions, in an explanatory research, this article attempts to display Daesh’s takfiri approach toward Muslims and explains its historical and ideological roots, difference with Al-Qaeda’s takfiri approach, different approaches to takfir inside Daesh, main targets of Daesh’s takfir, and the reasons behinds its takfiri view. This article displays that for Daesh, the Muslims are limited only to Sunni Muslims who are accepting and following its approach. Other Sunni and non-Sunni Muslims are thus kuffar. This study also shows that the assertion of takfir has become a method for Daesh to discredit its opponents, such as Shi’a Muslims and other Muslim groups

Mutation Bias Favors Protein Folding Stability in the Evolution of Small Populations

Mutation bias in prokaryotes varies from extreme adenine and thymine (AT) in obligatory endosymbiotic or parasitic bacteria to extreme guanine and cytosine (GC), for instance in actinobacteria. GC mutation bias deeply influences the folding stability of proteins, making proteins on the average less hydrophobic and therefore less stable with respect to unfolding but also less susceptible to misfolding and aggregation. We study a model where proteins evolve subject to selection for folding stability under given mutation bias, population size, and neutrality. We find a non-neutral regime where, for any given population size, there is an optimal mutation bias that maximizes fitness. Interestingly, this optimal GC usage is small for small populations, large for intermediate populations and around 50% for large populations. This result is robust with respect to the definition of the fitness function and to the protein structures studied. Our model suggests that small populations evolving with small GC usage eventually accumulate a significant selective advantage over populations evolving without this bias. This provides a possible explanation to the observation that most species adopting obligatory intracellular lifestyles with a consequent reduction of effective population size shifted their mutation spectrum towards AT. The model also predicts that large GC usage is optimal for intermediate population size. To test these predictions we estimated the effective population sizes of bacterial species using the optimal codon usage coefficients computed by dos Reis et al. and the synonymous to non-synonymous substitution ratio computed by Daubin and Moran. We found that the population sizes estimated in these ways are significantly smaller for species with small and large GC usage compared to species with no bias, which supports our prediction

Famine food of vegetal origin consumed in the Netherlands during World War II

Background: Periods of extreme food shortages during war force people to eat food that they normally do not consider edible. The last time that countries in Western Europe experienced severe scarcities was during World War II. The so-called Dutch famine or Hunger Winter (1944-1945) made at least 25,000 victims. The Dutch government took action by opening soup kitchens and providing information on wild plants and other famine food sources in "wartime cookbooks." The Dutch wartime diet has never been examined from an ethnobotanical perspective. Methods: We interviewed 78 elderly Dutch citizens to verify what they remembered of the consumption of vegetal and fungal famine food during World War II by them and their close surroundings. We asked whether they experienced any adverse effects from consuming famine food plants and how they knew they were edible. We identified plant species mentioned during interviews by their local Dutch names and illustrated field guides and floras. We hypothesized that people living in rural areas consumed more wild species than urban people. A Welch t test was performed to verify whether the number of wild and cultivated species differed between urban and rural citizens. Results: A total number of 38 emergency food species (14 cultivated and 21 wild plants, three wild fungi) were mentioned during interviews. Sugar beets, tulip bulbs, and potato peels were most frequently consumed. Regularly eaten wild species were common nettle, blackberry, and beechnuts. Almost one third of our interviewees explicitly described to have experienced extreme hunger during the war. People from rural areas listed significantly more wild species than urban people. The number of cultivated species consumed by both groups was similar. Negative effects were limited to sore throats and stomachache from the consumption of sugar beets and tulip bulbs. Knowledge on the edibility of famine food was obtained largely by oral transmission; few people remembered the written recipes in wartime cookbooks. Conclusion: This research shows that 71years after the Second World War, knowledge on famine food species, once crucial for people's survival, is still present in the Dutch society. The information on famine food sources supplied by several institutions was not distributed widely. For the necessary revival of famine food knowledge during the 1940s, people needed to consult a small group of elders. Presumed toxicity was a major reason given by our participants to explain why they did not collect wild plants or mushrooms during the war

Emerging roles of ATF2 and the dynamic AP1 network in cancer

Cooperation among transcription factors is central for their ability to execute specific transcriptional programmes. The AP1 complex exemplifies a network of transcription factors that function in unison under normal circumstances and during the course of tumour development and progression. This Perspective summarizes our current understanding of the changes in members of the AP1 complex and the role of ATF2 as part of this complex in tumorigenesis.Fil: Lopez Bergami, Pablo Roberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental (i); Argentina; ArgentinaFil: Lau, Eric . Burnham Institute for Medical Research; Estados UnidosFil: Ronai, Zeev . Burnham Institute for Medical Research; Estados Unido

Evaluation of energy utilization efficiencies for SO2 and NO removal by pulsed corona discharge process

Pulsed corona discharge process was applied to the removal of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from simulated flue gas. The energy transfer efficiency of the pulse generation circuit and the energy utilization efficiencies for SO2 and NO removal are evaluated and discussed. When the pulse-forming capacitance was five times larger than the geometric capacitance of the reactor, the energy utilization efficiency was maximized, and the energy requirements for NO and SO2 removal could be lowered. With regard to radical utilization efficiency, producing small amounts of radicals frequently was found to be more advantageous than producing large amounts of radicals less frequently. Removal efficiency of SO2 increased with the applied peak voltage, but the energy utilization efficiency was nearly independent of the peak voltage when the peak field intensity was high enough to induce corona discharge (above 10 k V cm(-1) in this system).X1135sciescopu

Mathematical analysis of positive pulsed corona discharge process employed for removal of nitrogen oxides

A mathematical model was proposed to describe the behavior of the removal of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in a positive pulsed corona discharge reactor. The proposed model takes into account radical production at each pulsing and subsequent radical utilization for NOx removal. The production efficiencies of radicals such as O, OH, H, and N were derived by considering direct electron impact on dissociation of gaseous molecules, followed by excitation transfer reactions of excited oxygen atoms. The production efficiencies of those species were used for the model calculations. The proposed model could adequately predict the experimental data. Of the active species present, the ozone (O-3) produced by the reaction of O radical with oxygen was found to play the crucial role in oxidation of NO to NO2, both theoretically and experimentally.X1159sciescopu

Activity and durability of iron-exchanged mordenite-type zeolite catalyst for the reduction of NO by NH3

NO removal activity and the durability of iron-exchanged mordenite type zeolite catalyst (FeHM) have been examined in a continuous fixed bed flow reactor. The catalytic activity for NO reduction by NH3 in the presence of oxygen was much higher than that in the absence of oxygen, and it was fully reversible with respect to the presence of oxygen in the feed gas stream. The oxidation ability of SCR catalysts including FeHM was critical for both reactions of NH3 and SO2 oxidation, thus for the NO removal activity and its sulfur tolerance. The maximum conversion of NO for FeHM catalyst with respect to the reaction temperature shifted to the higher temperature due to its mild oxidation ability. The deactivation behaviors such as the changes of the physicochemical properties of the catalyst and the loss of NO removal activity induced by SO2 could not be distinguished, regardless of the metals exchanged in zeolite. However, the amount of deactivating agents deposited on the catalyst surface depended on the species of metals exchanged on the mordenite type zeolite, which was mainly attributed to the oxidation ability of metals for SO2 conversion to SO3.X1115sciescopu