Alien Registration- Richards, Luke (Orono, Penobscot County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/5946/thumbnail.jp

Formation in Christ through conflict : discerning God\u27s gifts in group spiritual direction

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/2632/thumbnail.jp

Measuring Equality in Machine Learning Security Defenses

The machine learning security community has developed myriad defenses for evasion attacks over the past decade. An understudied question in that community is: for whom do these defenses defend? In this work, we consider some common approaches to defending learned systems and whether those approaches may offer unexpected performance inequities when used by different sub-populations. We outline simple parity metrics and a framework for analysis that can begin to answer this question through empirical results of the fairness implications of machine learning security methods. Many methods have been proposed that can cause direct harm, which we describe as biased vulnerability and biased rejection. Our framework and metric can be applied to robustly trained models, preprocessing-based methods, and rejection methods to capture behavior over security budgets. We identify a realistic dataset with a reasonable computational cost suitable for measuring the equality of defenses. Through a case study in speech command recognition, we show how such defenses do not offer equal protection for social subgroups and how to perform such analyses for robustness training, and we present a comparison of fairness between two rejection-based defenses: randomized smoothing and neural rejection. We offer further analysis of factors that correlate to equitable defenses to stimulate the future investigation of how to assist in building such defenses. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that examines the fairness disparity in the accuracy-robustness trade-off in speech data and addresses fairness evaluation for rejection-based defenses.Comment: In Submissio

Effect of Food Intake on RER Values During Submaximal Treadmill Exercise

The purpose of this experiment was to observe the extent to which food consumption prior to exercise affects fuel oxidation during submaximal exercise.It was hypothesized that individuals in the fasted state will utilize fat oxidation as the primary fuel source longer than individuals fed prior to exercise. This will be reflected by lower RER values throughout the graded exercise protocol.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/exercise-science-research-proposal-posters/1074/thumbnail.jp

Oral vaccination with a rough attenuated mutant of S. Infantis increases post-wean weight gain and prevents clinical signs of salmonellosis in S. Typhimurium challenged pigs

We show that oral inoculation of 14 day old conventional piglets with a rough attenuated Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis 1326/28Фr (serogroup C1), 24 h prior to oral challenge with S. enterica serovar Typhimurium 4/74 (serogroup B), resulted in significant weight gain (~ 10%) measured at 14 days post-weaning (38 days of age). Two days after challenge the S. Typhimurium induced stunting and, in some cases loss, of villi but this was prevented by pre-inoculation with the S. Infantis strain. The clinical signs of disease associated with S. Typhimurium 4/74 challenge and faecal shedding were also significantly (P < 0.05) reduced by pre-inoculation with the S. Infantis mutant. Pre-inoculation of pigs with the S. Infantis mutant also increased weight gain in pigs challenged with pathogenic Escherichia coli. However, Mycobacterium bovis BCG, an unrelated intracellular bacterium, did not protect against challenge with S. Typhimurium 4/74

Unilateral stiffness interventions augment vertical stiffness and change of direction speed

It has previously been shown that pre-conditioning interventions can augment change of direction speed (CODS). However, the mechanistic nature of these augmentations has not been well considered. The current study sought to determine the effects of pre-conditioning interventions designed to augment vertical stiffness on CODS. Following familiarization, ten healthy males (age: 22 ± 2 years; height: 1.78 ± 0.05 m; body mass: 75.1 ± 8.7 kg) performed three different stiffness interventions in a randomized and counterbalanced order. The interventions were: a) bilateral-focused, b) unilateral-focused, and c) a control of CODS test practice. Vertical stiffness and joint stiffness was determined pre- and post-intervention using a single leg drop jump task. CODS test performance was assessed post-intervention using a double 90o cutting task. Performances following the unilateral intervention were significantly faster than control (1.7%; P = 0.011; d = -1.08), but not significantly faster than the bilateral intervention (1.0% faster; P = 0.14; d = -0.59). Versus control, vertical stiffness was 14% greater (P = 0.049; d = 0.39) following the unilateral intervention and 11% greater (P = 0.019; d = 0.31) following the bilateral intervention; there was no difference between unilateral and bilateral interventions (P = 0.94; d = -0.08). The findings of the current study suggest that unilateral pre-conditioning interventions designed to augment vertical stiffness improve CODS within this experimental cohort

Self-reported quality of care for older adults from 2004 to 2011: a cohort study

Background: little is known about changes in the quality of medical care for older adults over time. Objective: to assess changes in technical quality of care over 6 years, and associations with participants' characteristics. Design: a national cohort survey covering RAND Corporation-derived quality indicators (QIs) in face-to-face structured interviews in participants' households. Participants: a total of 5,114 people aged 50 or more in four waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Methods: the percentage achievement of 24 QIs in 10 general medical and geriatric clinical conditions was calculated for each time point, and associations with participants' characteristics were estimated using logistic regression. Results: participants were eligible for 21,220 QIs. QI achievement for geriatric conditions (cataract, falls, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis) was 41% [95% confidence interval (CI): 38–44] in 2004–05 and 38% (36–39) in 2010–11. Achievement for general medical conditions (depression, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, pain and cerebrovascular disease) improved from 75% (73–77) in 2004–05 to 80% (79–82) in 2010–11. Achievement ranged from 89% for cerebrovascular disease to 34% for osteoarthritis. Overall achievement was lower for participants who were men, wealthier, infrequent alcohol drinkers, not obese and living alone. Conclusion: substantial system-level shortfalls in quality of care for geriatric conditions persisted over 6 years, with relatively small and inconsistent variations in quality by participants' characteristics. The relative lack of variation by participants' characteristics suggests that quality improvement interventions may be more effective when directed at healthcare delivery systems rather than individuals

Stressed Ge:Ga photoconductors for space-based astronomy. (Is there life beyond 120 micron)

Information is given in viewgraph form. Information is given on the characteristics of stressed Ge:Ga, a spring type stress cavity, mounting hardware, materials parameters affecting dark current, and the behavior of low dark current stressed Ge:Ga. It is concluded that detectors exist today for background-limited detection at 200 microns, that researchers are narrowing in on the significant parameters that effect dark current in stressed photoconductors, that these findings may be applied to other photoconductor materials, and that some creative problem solving for an ionizing effect reset mechanism is needed

Ammonia decomposition enhancement by Cs-Promoted Fe/Al2O3 catalysts

A range of Cs-doped Fe/Al2O3 catalysts were prepared for the ammonia decomposition reaction. Through time on-line studies it was shown that at all loadings of Cs investigated the activity of the Fe/Al2O3 catalysts was enhanced, with the optimum Cs:Fe being ca. 1. Initially, the rate of NH3 decomposition was low, typically < 10% equilibrium conversion (99.7%@500°C) recorded after 1 h. All catalysts exhibited an induction period (typically ca. 10 h) with the conversion reaching a high of 67% equilibrium conversion for Cs:Fe = 0.5 and 1. The highest rate of decomposition observed was attributed to the balance between increasing the concentration of Cs without blocking the active site. Analysis of H2-TPR and XPS measurements indicated that Cs acts as an electronic promoter. Previously, Cs has been shown to act as a promoter for Ru, where Cs alters the electron density of the active site, thereby facilitating the recombination of N2 which is considered the rate determining step. In addition, XRD and N2 adsorption measurements suggest that with higher Cs loadings deactivation of the catalytic activity is due to a layer of CsOH that forms on the surface and blocks active sites