336 research outputs found
Growth and Containment of a Hierarchical Criminal Network
We model the hierarchical evolution of an organized criminal network via
antagonistic recruitment and pursuit processes. Within the recruitment phase, a
criminal kingpin enlists new members into the network, who in turn seek out
other affiliates. New recruits are linked to established criminals according to
a probability distribution that depends on the current network structure. At
the same time, law enforcement agents attempt to dismantle the growing
organization using pursuit strategies that initiate on the lower level nodes
and that unfold as self-avoiding random walks. The global details of the
organization are unknown to law enforcement, who must explore the hierarchy
node by node. We halt the pursuit when certain local criteria of the network
are uncovered, encoding if and when an arrest is made; the criminal network is
assumed to be eradicated if the kingpin is arrested. We first analyze
recruitment and study the large scale properties of the growing network; later
we add pursuit and use numerical simulations to study the eradication
probability in the case of three pursuit strategies, the time to first
eradication and related costs. Within the context of this model, we find that
eradication becomes increasingly costly as the network increases in size and
that the optimal way of arresting the kingpin is to intervene at the early
stages of network formation. We discuss our results in the context of dark
network disruption and their implications on possible law enforcement
strategies.Comment: 16 pages, 11 Figures; New title; Updated figures with color scheme
better suited for colorblind readers and for gray scale printin
Effect of Conidia Germination on Infection of Brown Planthopper (BPH) by Insect Fungi
Conidia of insect fungi actively invade BPH [brown planthopper]. After a conidium lands on the insect cuticle, germination takes about 8 to 16 h, depending on the temperature and relative humidity. After the germination, tuber is formed, the conidium produces specific chitinase enzymes to dissolve the insect cuticle. This allows the fungus to enter the insect body cavity, where further fungus growth occurs. At the end of the infection cycle, the mycelium sporulates on the outside of the insect. Conidia produced on the cadaver can infect healthy BPH initiating epizootics of the fungus. To test infection, 50 adult alate BPH were used for treatment. Insect were dipped in the conidia solution for about 60s and transferred to filter paper to drain. Control insects were dipped in Tween 80 solution. Insects were incubated on potted rice plants in mylar cages. Half the cages were covered with plastic bags for 2.5 h immediately after fungi application to raise RH to saturation. All pots were kept in a greenhouse at 25-30 deg C (day) and 15-20 deg C (night) for 5 d. Live and infected (dead and fungi-covered) insects were counted. Mortality due to fungus infection was calculated. The results show lessening, but not significantly different mortality with increasing fungus conidia treatment. Pregermination of the fungus Beauveria bassiana conidia and 2 h incubation at saturated RH did not increase BPH infection
Orbital assembly and maintenance study
The requirements, conceptual design, tradeoffs, procedures, and techniques for orbital assembly of the support structure of the microwave power transmission system and the radio astronomy telescope are described. Thermal and stress analyses, packaging, alignment, and subsystems requirements are included along with manned vs. automated and transportation tradeoffs. Technical and operational concepts for the manned and automated maintenance of satellites were investigated and further developed results are presented
Orbital assembly and maintenance study. Executive summary
A sound, practical approach for the assembly and maintenance of very large structures in space is presented. The methods and approaches for assembling two large structures are examined. The maintenance objectives include the investigation of methods to maintain five geosynchronous satellites. The two assembly examples are a 200-meter-diameter radio astronomy telescope and a 1,000-meter-diameter microwave power transmission system. The radio astronomy telescope operates at an 8,000-mile altitude and receives RF signals from space. The microwave power transmission system is part of a solar power satellite that will be used to transmit converted solar energy to microwave ground receivers. Illustrations are included
VectorDisk: a microfluidic platform integrating diagnostic markers for evidence-based mosquito control
Effective mosquito monitoring relies on the accurate identification and characterization of the target population. Since this process requires specialist knowledge and equipment that is not widely available, automated field-deployable systems are highly desirable. We present a centrifugal microfluidic cartridge, the VectorDisk, which integrates TaqMan PCR assays in two feasibility studies, aiming to assess multiplexing capability, specificity, and reproducibility in detecting disk-integrated vector-related assays. In the first study, pools of 10 mosquitoes were used as samples. We tested 18 disks with 27 DNA and RNA assays each, using a combination of multiple microfluidic chambers and detection wavelengths (geometric and color multiplexing) to identify mosquito and malaria parasite species as well as insecticide resistance mechanisms. In the second study, purified nucleic acids served as samples to test arboviral and malaria infective mosquito assays. Nine disks were tested with 14 assays each. No false positive results were detected on any of the disks. The coe cient of variation in reproducibility tests was <10%. The modular nature of the platform, the easy adaptation of the primer/probe panels, the cold chain independence, the rapid (2-3 h) analysis, and the assay multiplexing capacity are key features, rendering the VectorDisk a potential candidate for automated vector analysis
Effects of the temperature and storage on formulations with Mycelia of Beauveria bassiana (Bals.) Vuill and Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschn.) Sorok
Network-based models for social recommender systems
With the overwhelming online products available in recent years, there is an
increasing need to filter and deliver relevant personalized advice for users.
Recommender systems solve this problem by modeling and predicting individual
preferences for a great variety of items such as movies, books or research
articles. In this chapter, we explore rigorous network-based models that
outperform leading approaches for recommendation. The network models we
consider are based on the explicit assumption that there are groups of
individuals and of items, and that the preferences of an individual for an item
are determined only by their group memberships. The accurate prediction of
individual user preferences over items can be accomplished by different
methodologies, such as Monte Carlo sampling or Expectation-Maximization
methods, the latter resulting in a scalable algorithm which is suitable for
large datasets
Coordinatively Saturated Tris(oxazolinyl)borato Zinc Hydride-Catalyzed Cross Dehydrocoupling of Silanes and Alcohols
The four-coordinate zinc compound ToMZnH (1, ToM = tris(4,4-dimethyl-2-oxazolinyl)phenylborate) catalyzes selective alcoholysis of substituted hydrosilanes. The catalytic reaction of PhMeSiH2 and aliphatic alcohols favors the monodehydrocoupled product PhMeHSi–OR. With the aryl alcohol 3,5-C6H3Me2OH, the selectivity for mono(aryloxy)hydrosilane PhMeHSiOC6H3Me2 and bis(aryloxy)silane PhMeSi(OC6H3Me2)2 is controlled by relative reagent concentrations. Reactions of secondary organosilanes and diols provide cyclic bis(oxo)silacycloalkanes in high yield. The empirical rate law for the ToMZnH-catalyzed reaction of 3,5-dimethylphenol and PhMeSiH2 is −d[PhMeSiH2]/dt = k′obs[ToMZnH]1[3,5-C6H3Me2OH]0[PhMeSiH2]1 (determined at 96 °C) which indicates that Si–O bond formation is turnover-limiting in the presence of excess phenol
- …