The Standardised Digital Forensic Investigation Process Model (SDFIPM)

The field of digital forensics still lacks formal process models that courts can employ to determine the reliability of the process followed in a digital investigation. The existing models have often been developed by digital forensic practitioners, based on their own personal experience and on an ad-hoc basis, without attention to the establishment of standardisation within the field. This has prevented the institution of the formal processes that are urgently required. Moreover, as digital forensic investigators often operate within different fields of law enforcement, commerce and incident response, the existing models have often tended to focus on one particular field and have failed to consider all the environments. This has hindered the development of a generic model that can be applied in all the three stated fields of digital forensics. To address these shortcomings, this paper makes a novel contribution by proposing the Advanced Investigative Process Model (the SDFIPM) for Conducting Digital Forensic Investigations, encompassing the ‘middle part’ of the digital investigative process, which is formal in that it synthesizes, harmonises and extends the existing models, and which is generic in that it can be applied in the three fields of law enforcement, commerce and incident response

A life cycle assessment on the dehairing of rawhides : chemical treatment versus enzymatic recovery through solid state fermentation

The leather industry needs to switch from the traditional chemically based dehairing process to an environmentally friendly one so that the overall burdens to the environment are reduced. The primary goal of the work was thus to compare the chemical leather dehairing process to an enzymatically based one using the enzymes that are extracted after the application of solid state fermentation (SSF) on hair wastes generated after dehairing. The environmental burdens of the dehairing stage were determined using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach by comparing the two aforementioned management scenarios. The first scenario was the commonly used technology in which hair is removed via a chemical process and then composted in open piles. This scenario included two subscenarios where hair waste is either incinerated or landfilled. In the second scenario, the proteolytic enzymes extracted during the SSF of the residual hair are used to dehair the new rawhides instead of chemicals. Industrial and laboratory data were combined with international databases using the SimaPro 8.0 LCA software to make comparisons. The environmental impacts associated with the enzymatic dehairing were significantly lower than the ones associated to the conventional chemical dehairing process. This difference is attributed to the impacts associated with the original production of the chemicals and to the electricity consumed in the conventional method. A sensitivity analysis revealed that the results are affected by the amounts of chemicals used during dehairing

Development of CO2 snow cleaning for in situ cleaning of µCMM stylus tips

Contamination adhered to the surface of a µCMM stylus tip compromises the measurement accuracy of the µCMM system, potentially causing dimensional errors that are over ten times larger than the uncertainty of a modern µCMM. In prior work by the authors, the use of a high pressure CO2 gas stream was demonstrated to achieve significant cleaning rate for a range of contaminant without damage to the stylus tip surface. This paper explores the practical challenges of achieving effective stylus tip cleaning in situ on µCMM systems. Two types of snow cleaning approaches were evaluated for their coverage of cleaning, thermal impact and gas flow forces. This work then presents a novel multi-nozzle prototype system using pulsed snow streams to achieve cleaning coverage over the entire stylus tip, and balances forces from the snow streams reducing drag force imparted by the gas stream to levels comparable to the probing force of µCMMs, as well as allowing automated cleaning procedure integrated into a µCMM system

Managing Stakeholders or the Environment? The Challenge of Relating Indicators in Practice

Many organizations present their environmental work in the form of annual reports and use the indicators in them for follow-up. However, internal communication and management is needed for environmental improvements. The indicators found in reports may be suitable for external communication, but are they also suitable internally and operationally? This article reviews the existing literature on environmental indicators. With the help of an operational approach, from organisation theory, and a life-cycle approach, indicators are analysed. The analysis shows that formulating indicators for internal management is not an easy task; available guidelines are of little help. It is concluded that the environment can be managed internally by relating indicators. Therefore, an additional set of indicators for internal management and a wider responsibility for the life cycle are recommended. The analysis and recommendations are illustrated with examples drawn from the field of property management

Ion release from experimental Au-Pt-based metal-ceramic alloys

Objective. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of individual metallic elements within experimental Au-Pt-based dental alloys for porcelain veneering on ion release. Methods. A binary Au-10 at% Pt alloy (AP10) was designed as a parent alloy. Six ternary AP10-X (X = In/Fe/Sn/Zn) and four quaternary (AP10-In2)-Y (Y = Fe/Sn/Zn) alloys containing oxide-forming elements, X and Y, up to 2 at% were prepared and ion release from the experimental alloys in deionized water and commercial soft drink was examined. For ion release determination samples with size 10 mm x 10 mm x 0.5 mm were immersed in 20 ml of deionized water for 5 min. Samples were then removed and immersed in 20 ml of Sprite Light (R) for a further 5 min, and 2 h at 37 degrees C. The amounts of ions released in the test solutions were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. Results. When looking at individual elemental ion release, the order of the amount of dissolved ions was Fe > Zn > In > Sn. Among the base metal elements examined, Fe showed significantly higher levels of ion release than the other base metal elements for all three testing conditions (P < 0.05). When looking at the effects of test solution on ion release from the alloys, Sprite Light (R) caused significantly higher level of ion release than deionized water, with the exception of In in the ternary AP10-In1.0 and AP10-In1.7 alloys and the quaternary (AP10-In2)-Sn1.0 alloy, which showed similar or slightly greater amounts of ion release into deionized water. Significance. Significant ion release was only observed from the Fe element. Sn and In elements showed less ion release than the Fe and Zn elements. Accordingly, Sn and In elements should be recommended as oxide-forming elements in Au-Pt-based metal-ceramic systems. (C) 2010 Academy of Dental Materials. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Evaluation of pre-PCR processing approaches for enumeration of Salmonella enterica in naturally contaminated animal feed

Three pre-PCR processing strategies for the detection and/or quantification of Salmonella in naturally contaminated soy bean meal were evaluated

Mapping of axial plastic zone for roller bearing overloads using neutron transmission imaging

Premature failure of wind turbine gearbox bearings is an ongoing concern for industry, with sudden overload events potentially contributing towards raceway damage, significantly hindering performance. Subsurface stresses generated along a line contact cause material yielding, and a probable crack initiation site. Currently, the ability to study subsurface plastic zone evolution using non-destructive techniques is limited. Neutron Bragg edge imaging is a novel technique, allowing for two-dimensional mapping of the Bragg edge broadening parameter, indicative of bulk plastic deformation. An experiment on the ENGIN-X strain scanning instrument, at the ISIS neutron source, UK, was setup for Bragg edge transmission imaging, to measure the effect of in situ loading on the raceway of a bearing, scaled-down from a traditional wind turbine gearbox bearing. Results demonstrate a strong correlation between load and the Bragg edge width, and allow for future experimental development in studying, not only the effect of overloads on fatigue life, but also the use of neutron imaging for evaluating plastic deformation in engineering components