The THREAT-ARREST Cyber-Security Training Platform

Cyber security is always a main concern for critical infrastructures and nation-wide safety and sustainability. Thus, advanced cyber ranges and security training is becoming imperative for the involved organizations. This paper presets a cyber security training platform, called THREAT-ARREST. The various platform modules can analyze an organization’s system, identify the most critical threats, and tailor a training program to its personnel needs. Then, different training programmes are created based on the trainee types (i.e. administrator, simple operator, etc.), providing several teaching procedures and accomplishing diverse learning goals. One of the main novelties of THREAT-ARREST is the modelling of these programmes along with the runtime monitoring, management, and evaluation operations. The platform is generic. Nevertheless, its applicability in a smart energy case study is detailed

Inhibitory activity of Iranian plant extracts on growth and biofilm formation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Aims: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a drug resistance opportunistic bacterium. Biofilm formation is key factor for survivalof P. aeruginosa in various environments. Polysaccharides may be involved in biofilm formation. The purpose of thisstudy was to evaluate antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activities of seven plant extracts with known alpha-glucosidaseinhibitory activities on different strains of P. aeruginosa.Methodology and results: Plants were extracted with methanol by the maceration method. Antimicrobial activities weredetermined by agar dilution and by growth yield as measured by OD560nm of the Luria Bertani broth (LB) culture with orwithout extracts. In agar dilution method, extracts of Quercus infectoria inhibited the growth of all, while Myrtuscommunis extract inhibited the growth of 3 out of 8 bacterial strains with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 1000μg/mL. All extracts significantly (p≤0.003) reduced growth rate of the bacteria in comparison with the control withoutextracts in LB broth at sub-MIC concentrations (500 μg/mL). All plant extracts significantly (p≤0.003) reduced biofilmformation compared to the controls. Glycyrrhiza glabra and Q. infectoria had the highest anti-biofilm activities. Nocorrelation between the alpha-glucosidase inhibitory activity with growth or the intensity of biofilm formation was found.Conclusion, significance and impact of study: Extracts of Q. infectoria and M. communis had the most antimicrobial,while Q. infectoria and G. glabra had the highest anti-biofilm activities. All plant extracts had anti-biofilm activities withmarginal effect on growth, suggesting that the mechanisms of these activities are unrelated to static or cidal effects.Further work to understand the relation between antimicrobial and biofilm formation is needed for development of newmeans to fight the infectious caused by this bacterium in future

The Genetics of Response to and Side Effects of Lithium Treatment in Bipolar Disorder: Future Research Perspectives

Although the mood stabilizer lithium is a first-line treatment in bipolar disorder, a substantial number of patients do not benefit from it and experience side effects. No clinical tool is available for predicting lithium response or the occurrence of side effects in everyday clinical practice. Multiple genetic research efforts have been performed in this field because lithium response and side effects are considered to be multifactorial endophenotypes. Available results from linkage and segregation, candidate-gene, and genome-wide association studies indicate a role of genetic factors in determining response and side effects. For example, candidate-gene studies often report GSK3β, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and SLC6A4 as being involved in lithium response, and the latest genome-wide association study found a genome-wide significant association of treatment response with a locus on chromosome 21 coding for two long non-coding RNAs. Although research results are promising, they are limited mainly by a lack of replicability and, despite the collaboration of consortia, insufficient sample sizes. The need for larger sample sizes and “multi-omics” approaches is apparent, and such approaches are crucial for choosing the best treatment options for patients with bipolar disorder. In this article, we delineate the mechanisms of action of lithium and summarize the results of genetic research on lithium response and side effects

Towards improved socio-economic assessments of ocean acidification’s impacts

Ocean acidification is increasingly recognized as a component of global change that could have a wide range of impacts on marine organisms, the ecosystems they live in, and the goods and services they provide humankind. Assessment of these potential socio-economic impacts requires integrated efforts between biologists, chemists, oceanographers, economists and social scientists. But because ocean acidification is a new research area, significant knowledge gaps are preventing economists from estimating its welfare impacts. For instance, economic data on the impact of ocean acidification on significant markets such as fisheries, aquaculture and tourism are very limited (if not non-existent), and non-market valuation studies on this topic are not yet available. Our paper summarizes the current understanding of future OA impacts and sets out what further information is required for economists to assess socio-economic impacts of ocean acidification. Our aim is to provide clear directions for multidisciplinary collaborative research

Mixed Brain Pathologies in Dementia: The BrainNet Europe Consortium Experience

Background: Dementia results from heterogeneous diseases of the brain. Mixed disease forms are increasingly recognized. Methods: We performed a survey within brain banks of BrainNet Europe to estimate the proportion of mixed disease forms underlying dementia and age- and gender-specific influences. Results: Data collected in 9 centres from 3,303 individuals were analysed. The proportion of patients with mixed diagnoses among all cases with Alzheimer disease (AD), vascular pathology (VP), argyrophilic grain dementia (AGD), and synucleinopathies, such as Lewy body dementia (LBD), Parkinson disease (PD) and synuclein pathology only in the amygdala, was 53.3%. Mixed pathology was more frequently reported with LBD, PD, AGD, and VP than with AD. The percentage of mixed diagnoses for AGD and VP significantly differed between centres. In patients younger than 75 years, synucleinopathies, and pure forms of AD, VP, and AGD were more frequent in men. Above 75 years of age, more women had pure AD and pure AGD. Conclusions: The most obvious neuropathological alteration should not terminate the diagnostic procedure since copathology is likely to be found. Neuropathological interpretation of AGD and VP has not been sufficiently established in a consensus. Pure forms of synucleinopathies are unlikely sole substrates for dementia. Copyright (C) 2008 S. Karger AG, Base

Classification of Construction Projects

The final publication is available at World Academy of Science via https://waset.org/Publication/classification-of-construction-projects/10001697 © 2015, This unmodified version is made available under the CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/In order to address construction project requirements and specifications, scholars and practitioners need to establish taxonomy according to a scheme that best fits their need. While existing characterization methods are continuously being improved, new ones are devised to cover project properties which have not been previously addressed. One such method, the Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI), has received limited consideration strictly as a classification scheme. Developed by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) in 1996, the PDRI has been refined over the last two decades as a method for evaluating a project's scope definition completeness during front-end planning (FEP). The main contribution of this study is a review of practical project classification methods, and a discussion of how PDRI can be used to classify projects based on their readiness in the FEP phase. The proposed model has been applied to 59 construction projects in Ontario, and the results are discussed

An electrically actuated molecular toggle switch

Molecular electronics is considered a promising approach for future nanoelectronic devices. In order that molecular junctions can be used as electrical switches or even memory devices, they need to be actuated between two distinct conductance states in a controlled and reproducible manner by external stimuli. Here we present a tripodal platform with a cantilever arm and a nitrile group at its end that is lifted from the surface. The formation of a coordinative bond between the nitrile nitrogen and the gold tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope can be controlled by both electrical and mechanical means, and leads to a hysteretic switching of the conductance of the junction by more than two orders of magnitude. This toggle switch can be actuated with high reproducibility so that the forces involved in the mechanical deformation of the molecular cantilever can be determined precisely with scanning tunnelling microscopy

MIXING AND HEAT TRANSFER IN HELICAL CAPILLARY FLOW REACTORS WITH ALTERNATING BENDS

ABSTRACT Capillary flow is often occurring in natural and technical systems. Due to small diameter channels, laminar flow is established, while heat transfer is high from large specific surface area. For chemical reactions, good mixing and a narrow residence time distribution are important for high selectivity and yield. To improve mixing and residence time distribution, several measures of bend flow, helical arrangements and curved capillaries are proposed in literature. This contribution describes the flow, residence time distribution, and its influence on chemical reactions in short helical, alternating reactor capillaries (SHARC). The influence of the number of bends between alternating coils on the residence time distribution is described for different capillary and coil diameter, coil length and flow rate in laminar regime. The residence time distribution is a good measure for axial mixing and dispersion, while the heat transfer is mainly affected by the flow rate. The SHARC device was built from polymer capillaries of fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP, inner diameter of 0.38 and 0.75 mm) with high mechanical flexibility for bending and good chemical resistance. Despite of low heat conductivity of the wall material, volumetric heat transfer coefficients of more than 5 MW/m 3 K were measured in a water bath. A highly exothermic reaction with adiabatic temperature increase of more than 100 K could be operated without detecting reaction runaway

Dynamic response of blast loaded Hollow Cylindrical and Truncated Conical shells

Hollow cylindrical and truncated conical shells depict enhanced torsional and shear resistance compared to beams and plates and are ubiquitously used in structures in aeronautics, submarines, wind turbines, pressure vessels, and transmission pylons. Upon extensive localised blast, these elements undergo local and global deformation and failure. The detrimental damage to the shell depends on the stand-off and charge mass and is proportional to the emerged local dynamic stresses and inelastic deformations. Large localised translations relocate the structure’s original pivot point and induce global rotations about the new one which raises the probability of structural collapse. In this work, we examine large plastic deformations of hollow cylindrical and truncated conical shells subject to a range of pulse pressures emanated from high explosives. Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI)-based Finite Element (FE) models were developed to discern the characteristics of blasts at various stand-offs and functions were proposed to link load parameters to structural, material, and geometric properties