Trick or Heat? Manipulating Critical Temperature-Based Control Systems Using Rectification Attacks

Temperature sensing and control systems are widely used in the closed-loop control of critical processes such as maintaining the thermal stability of patients, or in alarm systems for detecting temperature-related hazards. However, the security of these systems has yet to be completely explored, leaving potential attack surfaces that can be exploited to take control over critical systems. In this paper we investigate the reliability of temperature-based control systems from a security and safety perspective. We show how unexpected consequences and safety risks can be induced by physical-level attacks on analog temperature sensing components. For instance, we demonstrate that an adversary could remotely manipulate the temperature sensor measurements of an infant incubator to cause potential safety issues, without tampering with the victim system or triggering automatic temperature alarms. This attack exploits the unintended rectification effect that can be induced in operational and instrumentation amplifiers to control the sensor output, tricking the internal control loop of the victim system to heat up or cool down. Furthermore, we show how the exploit of this hardware-level vulnerability could affect different classes of analog sensors that share similar signal conditioning processes. Our experimental results indicate that conventional defenses commonly deployed in these systems are not sufficient to mitigate the threat, so we propose a prototype design of a low-cost anomaly detector for critical applications to ensure the integrity of temperature sensor signals.Comment: Accepted at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 201

The LAMOST Complete Spectroscopic Survey of Pointing Area (LaCoSSPAr) in the Southern Galactic Cap I. The Spectroscopic Redshift Catalog

We present a spectroscopic redshift catalog from the LAMOST Complete Spectroscopic Survey of Pointing Area (LaCoSSPAr) in the Southern Galactic Cap (SGC), which is designed to observe all sources (Galactic and extra-galactic) by using repeating observations with a limiting magnitude of $r=18.1~mag$ in two $20~deg^2$ fields. The project is mainly focusing on the completeness of LAMOST ExtraGAlactic Surveys (LEGAS) in the SGC, the deficiencies of source selection methods and the basic performance parameters of LAMOST telescope. In both fields, more than 95% of galaxies have been observed. A post-processing has been applied to LAMOST 1D spectrum to remove the majority of remaining sky background residuals. More than 10,000 spectra have been visually inspected to measure the redshift by using combinations of different emission/absorption features with uncertainty of $\sigma_{z}/(1+z)<0.001$. In total, there are 1528 redshifts (623 absorption and 905 emission line galaxies) in Field A and 1570 redshifts (569 absorption and 1001 emission line galaxies) in Field B have been measured. The results show that it is possible to derive redshift from low SNR galaxies with our post-processing and visual inspection. Our analysis also indicates that up to 1/4 of the input targets for a typical extra-galactic spectroscopic survey might be unreliable. The multi-wavelength data analysis shows that the majority of mid-infrared-detected absorption (91.3%) and emission line galaxies (93.3%) can be well separated by an empirical criterion of $W2-W3=2.4$. Meanwhile, a fainter sequence paralleled to the main population of galaxies has been witnessed both in $M_r$/$W2-W3$ and $M_*$/$W2-W3$ diagrams, which could be the population of luminous dwarf galaxies but contaminated by the edge-on/highly inclined galaxies ($\sim30\%$).Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, 2 MRT, accepted by ApJ

Large-scale solar district heating plants in Danish smart thermal grid: developments and recent trends

Large solar collector fields are very popular in district heating system in Denmark, even though the solar radiation source is not favorable at high latitudes compared to many other regions. Business models for large solar heating plants in Denmark has attracted much attention worldwide. Denmark is not only the biggest country in both total installed capacities and numbers of large solar district heating plants, but also is the first and only country with commercial market-driven solar district heating plants. By the end of 2017, more than 1.3 million m2 solar district heating plants are in operation in Denmark. Furthermore, more than 70% of the large solar district heating plants worldwide are constructed in Denmark. Based on the case of Denmark, this study reviews the development of large solar district heating plants in Denmark since 2006. Success factors for Danish experiences was summarized and discussed. Novel design concepts of large solar district heating plants are also addressed to clarify the future development trend. Potential integration of large solar district heating plants with other renewable energy technologies are discussed. This paper can provide references to potential countries that want to exploit the market for solar district heating plants. Policy-makers can evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of solar district heating systems in the national energy planning level based on the know-how and experiences from Denmark

Study of the beneficial effects of green light on lettuce grown under short-term continuous red and blue light-emitting diodes

Red and blue light are the most important light spectra for driving photosynthesis to produce adequate crop yield. It is also believed that green light may contribute to adaptations to growth. However, the effects of green light, which can trigger specific and necessary responses of plant growth, have been underestimated in the past. In this study, lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) was exposed to different continuous light (CL) conditions for 48 h by a combination of red and blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) supplemented with or without green LEDs, in an environmental-controlled growth chamber. Green light supplementation enhanced photosynthetic capacity by increasing net photosynthetic rates (Pn), maximal photochemical efficiency (Fv/Fm), electron transport for carbon fixation (JPSII) and chlorophyll content in plants under the CL treatment. Green light decreased malondialdehyde and H2O2 accumulation by increasing the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD; EC 1.15.1.1) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX; EC 1.11.1.11) after 24 h of CL. Supplemental green light significantly increased the expression of photosynthetic genes LHCb and PsbA from 6 to 12 h, and these gene expression were maintained at higher levels than those under other light conditions between 12 and 24 h. However, a notable down-regulation of both LHCb and PsbA was observed during 24 to 48 h. These results indicate that the effects of green light on lettuce plant growth, via enhancing activity of particular components of antioxidantive enzyme system and promoting of LHCb and PsbA expression to maintain higher photosynthetic capacity, alleviated a number of the negative effects caused by CL

Geochronology of detrital muscovite and zircon constrains the sediment provenance changes in the Yangtze River during the late Cenozoic

The geometry and evolution of rivers originating from the Tibetan plateau are influenced by topography and climate change during the India-Asia collision. The Yangtze River is the longest among these rivers and formed due to capturing many rivers on the eastern Tibetan Plateau by the middle Yangtze. The timing of these capture events is still controversial. Here, we use detrital muscovite 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and zircon U-Pb ages to constrain the provenance of late Cenozoic sediments in the Jianghan Basin in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. The combined data suggest that late Pliocene sediments were mainly derived from a local source in the Jianghan Basin including the Dabie Shan. The middle Pleistocene sediments were derived from the Min River west of the Three Gorges. This implies that at least one river, perhaps the palaeo-Han River, originating from the Dabie Shan region, flowed through the centre of the Jianghan Basin during the late Pliocene. The appearance of sediment from the Min River in the Jianghan Basin somewhere between late Pliocene and middle Pleistocene suggests that the Three Gorges section of the Yangtze River was formed somewhere between late Pliocene and middle Pleistocene (N 2 - Q 2 )

Detection, Emission Estimation and Risk Prediction of Forest Fires in China Using Satellite Sensors and Simulation Models in the Past Three Decades—An Overview

Forest fires have major impact on ecosystems and greatly impact the amount of greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. This paper presents an overview in the forest fire detection, emission estimation, and fire risk prediction in China using satellite imagery, climate data, and various simulation models over the past three decades. Since the 1980s, remotely-sensed data acquired by many satellites, such as NOAA/AVHRR, FY-series, MODIS, CBERS, and ENVISAT, have been widely utilized for detecting forest fire hot spots and burned areas in China. Some developed algorithms have been utilized for detecting the forest fire hot spots at a sub-pixel level. With respect to modeling the forest burning emission, a remote sensing data-driven Net Primary productivity (NPP) estimation model was developed for estimating forest biomass and fuel. In order to improve the forest fire risk modeling in China, real-time meteorological data, such as surface temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, have been used as the model input for improving prediction of forest fire occurrence and its behavior. Shortwave infrared (SWIR) and near infrared (NIR) channels of satellite sensors have been employed for detecting live fuel moisture content (FMC), and the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) was used for evaluating the forest vegetation condition and its moisture status

The DArk Matter Particle Explorer mission

The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), one of the four scientific space science missions within the framework of the Strategic Pioneer Program on Space Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a general purpose high energy cosmic-ray and gamma-ray observatory, which was successfully launched on December 17th, 2015 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The DAMPE scientific objectives include the study of galactic cosmic rays up to $\sim 10$ TeV and hundreds of TeV for electrons/gammas and nuclei respectively, and the search for dark matter signatures in their spectra. In this paper we illustrate the layout of the DAMPE instrument, and discuss the results of beam tests and calibrations performed on ground. Finally we present the expected performance in space and give an overview of the mission key scientific goals.Comment: 45 pages, including 29 figures and 6 tables. Published in Astropart. Phy