"One size fits all" software does not fit in the legal sector

It is estimated that by 2011, the amount of electronic data created and stored will grow to 10 times the 180 exabytes that existed in 2006, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of almost 60%*. As the amount of electronically stored data increases and the cost of Electronic Discovery escalate, many companies are rushing to find a “magic pill” that can help them manage records and lower E-Discovery costs in the future. In response to this concern, several software firms have added records management programs to their current software, even Microsoft’s SharePoint is purported to have records management functionality. Unfortunately, discoverable information is taking different forms and our experience suggests that our tried and true methods of identifying responsive data are not effective. These companies claim that with the addition of Records Management they can also help lower the cost of Electronic Discovery required during litigation. Can these “one size fits all” programs actually meet the compliance standards set by the courts? Or, is this “add on” technology making promises that it just cannot deliver on? Can we afford to approach ESI in the context of Electronic Discovery as we have in the past? Is the convergence of Record Management, Compliance, Knowledge Management and Electronic Discovery going to meet in the correct position to meet the legal requirements of ESI? These questions need review

Agrochemical contamination and ageing effects on greenhouse plastic film for recycling

Polymers are employed in agriculture in several applications, the most efficient and fruitful of which is the protection of cultivations through the use of cover placed over plants while they are growing, providing protection from climatic factors, while at the same time increasing yield and/or extending the cropping season. Plastic films used for covering greenhouses, low and medium tunnel and for soil mulching have reached very notable consumptions all over Europe as well as the rest of the World, posing an important environmental problem connected with the impact that plastic material has on the sustainability of the agricultural production, whose environmental footprint may be deteriorated. Recycling agricultural plastics is a common technique, but it has not yet solved the problem of their re-use in the framework of a circular economy, since many factors are still anyway limiting the mechanical recycling of agricultural plastic materials. Among these limiting factors, the loss of mechanical properties of plastic film, due to its ageing after being exposed to direct solar radiation plays a crucial role, mostly if aggravated by the contamination with agrochemicals ordinarily used for crop health and pest management. In the present paper, the results of some laboratory tests on agricultural plastic film artificially aged for different periods contaminated with two different agrochemicals, are reported. These results have showed that the impact of agrochemicals on the plastic film is considerable already in the use-phase, so when entering the recycling stage, the material carries a low potential for being transformed into a closed-loop recycled material. The results in terms of Carbonyl Index (CI) have confirmed the tendency of the material to degrade rapidly when in contact with anti-aphid or fungicide contaminants. The samples sprayed with agrochemicals experience a considerable increase in CI values after 4 weeks of ageing, which makes impossible the mechanical recycling of this material

Non-Slanderability of Linkable Spontaneous Anonymous Group Signature (LSAG)

In this paper, we formally prove the non-slanderability property of the first linkable ring signature paper in ACISP 2004 (in which the notion was called linkable spontaneous anonymous group signature (LSAG)). The rigorous security analysis will give confidence to any future construction of Ring Confidential Transaction (RingCT) protocol for blockchain systems which may use this signature scheme as the basis

Heavy metal recovery from the fine fraction of solid waste incineration bottom ash by wet density separation

This work is aimed at exploring the recovery of heavy metals from the fine fraction of solid waste incineration bottom ash. For this study, wet-discharged bottom ash fine-fraction samples from full-scale treatment plants in Germany and Sweden were analyzed. The potential for the recovery of heavy metal compounds was investigated through wet density-separation with a shaking table. The feed materials were processed without any pre-treatment and the optimum processing conditions were determined by means of design of experiments. Tilt angle and stroke frequency were identified as the most relevant parameters, and the optimum settings were − 7.5° and 266 rpm, respectively. The obtained balanced copper enrichments (and yields) were 4.4 (41%), 6.2 (28%) and 2.4 (23%). A maximum copper enrichment of 14.5 with 2% yield was achieved, providing a concentrate containing 35.9 wt.% relevant heavy metal elements. This included 26.3 wt.% iron, 4.3 wt.% zinc and 3.8 wt.% copper. In conclusion, density separation with shaking tables can recover heavy metals from bottom ash fine fractions. Medium levels of heavy metal enrichment (e.g., for Cu 2.7–4.4) and yield (Cu: 26–41%) can be reached simultaneously. However, the separation performance also depends on the individual bottom ash sample

The impact of a high‐definition multileaf collimator for spine SBRT

PurposeAdvanced radiotherapy delivery systems designed for high‐dose, high‐precision treatments often come equipped with high‐definition multi‐leaf collimators (HD‐MLC) aimed at more finely shaping radiation dose to the target. In this work, we study the effect of a high definition MLC on spine stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) treatment plan quality and plan deliverability.Methods and MaterialsSeventeen spine SBRT cases were planned with VMAT using a standard definition MLC (M120), HD‐MLC, and HD‐MLC with an added objective to reduce monitor units (MU). M120 plans were converted into plans deliverable on an HD‐MLC using in‐house software. Plan quality and plan deliverability as measured by portal dosimetry were compared among the three types of plans.ResultsOnly minor differences were noted in plan quality between the M120 and HD‐MLC plans. Plans generated with the HD‐MLC tended to have better spinal cord sparing (3% reduction in maximum cord dose). HD‐MLC plans on average had 12% more MU and 55% greater modulation complexity as defined by an in‐house metric. HD‐MLC plans also had significantly degraded deliverability. Of the VMAT arcs measured, 94% had lower gamma passing metrics when using the HD‐MLC.ConclusionModest improvements in plan quality were noted when switching from M120 to HD‐MLC at the expense of significantly less accurate deliverability in some cases.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139989/1/acm212197.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139989/2/acm212197_am.pd

An overview of the tapeworms of vertebrate bowels of the earth

entire volume OA; selected chapter posted hereCopyright: © The University of Kansas, Natural History Museum. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Evolution of the adaptogenic concept from traditional use to medical systems: Pharmacology of stress- and aging-related diseases

Adaptogens comprise a category of herbal medicinal and nutritional products promoting adaptability, resilience, and survival of living organisms in stress. The aim of this review was to summarize the growing knowledge about common adaptogenic plants used in various traditional medical systems (TMS) and conventional medicine and to provide a modern rationale for their use in the treatment of stress-induced and aging-related disorders. Adaptogens have pharmacologically pleiotropic effects on the neuroendocrine-immune system, which explain their traditional use for the treatment of a wide range of conditions. They exhibit a biphasic dose-effect response: at low doses they function as mild stress-mimetics, which activate the adaptive stress-response signaling pathways to cope with severe stress. That is in line with their traditional use for preventing premature aging and to maintain good health and vitality. However, the potential of adaptogens remains poorly explored. Treatment of stress and aging-related diseases require novel approaches. Some combinations of adaptogenic plants provide unique effects due to their synergistic interactions in organisms not obtainable by any ingredient independently. Further progress in this field needs to focus on discovering new combinations of adaptogens based on traditional medical concepts. Robust and rigorous approaches including network pharmacology and systems pharmacology could help in analyzing potential synergistic effects and, more broadly, future uses of adaptogens. In conclusion, the evolution of the adaptogenic concept has led back to basics of TMS and a new level of understanding of holistic approach. It provides a rationale for their use in stress-induced and aging-related diseases

Lattice-switch Monte Carlo

We present a Monte Carlo method for the direct evaluation of the difference between the free energies of two crystal structures. The method is built on a lattice-switch transformation that maps a configuration of one structure onto a candidate configuration of the other by `switching' one set of lattice vectors for the other, while keeping the displacements with respect to the lattice sites constant. The sampling of the displacement configurations is biased, multicanonically, to favor paths leading to `gateway' arrangements for which the Monte Carlo switch to the candidate configuration will be accepted. The configurations of both structures can then be efficiently sampled in a single process, and the difference between their free energies evaluated from their measured probabilities. We explore and exploit the method in the context of extensive studies of systems of hard spheres. We show that the efficiency of the method is controlled by the extent to which the switch conserves correlated microstructure. We also show how, microscopically, the procedure works: the system finds gateway arrangements which fulfill the sampling bias intelligently. We establish, with high precision, the differences between the free energies of the two close packed structures (fcc and hcp) in both the constant density and the constant pressure ensembles.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures, RevTeX. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Pressure effect on the in-plane magnetic penetration depth in YBa_2Cu_4O_8

We report a study of the pressure effect (PE) on the in-plane magnetic field penetration depth lambda_{ab} in YBa_2Cu_4O_8 by means of Meissner fraction measurements. A pronounced PE on lambda_{ab}^{-2}(0) was observed with a maximum relative shift of \Delta\lambda^{-2}_{ab}/\lambda^{-2}_{ab}= 44(3)% at a pressure of 10.2 kbar. It arises from the pressure dependence of the effective in-plane charge carrier mass and pressure induced charge carrier transfer from the CuO chains to the superconducting CuO_2 planes. The present results imply that the charge carriers in YBa_2Cu_4O_8 are coupled to the lattice.Comment: 4pages 3 figure

A New Look at Blockchain Leader Election: Simple, Efficient, Sustainable and Post-Quantum

In this work, we study the blockchain leader election problem. The purpose of such protocols is to elect a leader who decides on the next block to be appended to the blockchain, for each block proposal round. Solutions to this problem are vital for the security of blockchain systems. We introduce an efficient blockchain leader election method with security based solely on standard assumptions for cryptographic hash functions (rather than public-key cryptographic assumptions) and that does not involve a racing condition as in Proof-of-Work based approaches. Thanks to the former feature, our solution provides the highest confidence in security, even in the post-quantum era. A particularly scalable application of our solution is in the Proof-of-Stake setting, and we investigate our solution in the Algorand blockchain system. We believe our leader election approach can be easily adapted to a range of other blockchain settings. At the core of Algorand\u27s leader election is a verifiable random function (VRF). Our approach is based on introducing a simpler primitive which still suffices for the blockchain leader election problem. In particular, we analyze the concrete requirements in an Algorand-like blockchain setting to accomplish leader election, which leads to the introduction of indexed VRF (iVRF). An iVRF satisfies modified uniqueness and pseudorandomness properties (versus a full-fledged VRF) that enable an efficient instantiation based on a hash function without requiring any complicated zero-knowledge proofs of correct PRF evaluation. We further extend iVRF to an authenticated iVRF with forward-security, which meets all the requirements to establish an Algorand-like consensus. Our solution is simple, flexible and incurs only a 32-byte additional overhead when combined with the current best solution to constructing a forward-secure signature (in the post-quantum setting). We implemented our (authenticated) iVRF proposal in C language on a standard computer and show that it significantly outperforms other quantum-safe VRF proposals in almost all metrics. Particularly, iVRF evaluation and verification can be executed in 0.02 ms, which is even faster than ECVRF used in Algorand