13,740 research outputs found
One Arizona: Evaluation Executive Brief
At a time when an extraordinary rhetoric of hate and intolerance defines our political climate, a narrative of fear towards newcomers threatens to divide us, and the Supreme Court is deadlocked on moving forward President Obama's Executive Actions on immigration, we are deeply moved and lifted up by the story of One Arizona. This is a story of a standout coalition of community partners that is transforming Arizona into a model for Latino civic engagement and political empowerment. Against the heated debate of building more walls along the southern border, One Arizona is a bright light and a reason for hope
Optimal Attack against Cyber-Physical Control Systems with Reactive Attack Mitigation
This paper studies the performance and resilience of a cyber-physical control
system (CPCS) with attack detection and reactive attack mitigation. It
addresses the problem of deriving an optimal sequence of false data injection
attacks that maximizes the state estimation error of the system. The results
provide basic understanding about the limit of the attack impact. The design of
the optimal attack is based on a Markov decision process (MDP) formulation,
which is solved efficiently using the value iteration method. Using the
proposed framework, we quantify the effect of false positives and
mis-detections on the system performance, which can help the joint design of
the attack detection and mitigation. To demonstrate the use of the proposed
framework in a real-world CPCS, we consider the voltage control system of power
grids, and run extensive simulations using PowerWorld, a high-fidelity power
system simulator, to validate our analysis. The results show that by carefully
designing the attack sequence using our proposed approach, the attacker can
cause a large deviation of the bus voltages from the desired setpoint. Further,
the results verify the optimality of the derived attack sequence and show that,
to cause maximum impact, the attacker must carefully craft his attack to strike
a balance between the attack magnitude and stealthiness, due to the
simultaneous presence of attack detection and mitigation
Modeling and Detecting False Data Injection Attacks against Railway Traction Power Systems
Modern urban railways extensively use computerized sensing and control
technologies to achieve safe, reliable, and well-timed operations. However, the
use of these technologies may provide a convenient leverage to cyber-attackers
who have bypassed the air gaps and aim at causing safety incidents and service
disruptions. In this paper, we study false data injection (FDI) attacks against
railways' traction power systems (TPSes). Specifically, we analyze two types of
FDI attacks on the train-borne voltage, current, and position sensor
measurements - which we call efficiency attack and safety attack -- that (i)
maximize the system's total power consumption and (ii) mislead trains' local
voltages to exceed given safety-critical thresholds, respectively. To
counteract, we develop a global attack detection (GAD) system that serializes a
bad data detector and a novel secondary attack detector designed based on
unique TPS characteristics. With intact position data of trains, our detection
system can effectively detect the FDI attacks on trains' voltage and current
measurements even if the attacker has full and accurate knowledge of the TPS,
attack detection, and real-time system state. In particular, the GAD system
features an adaptive mechanism that ensures low false positive and negative
rates in detecting the attacks under noisy system measurements. Extensive
simulations driven by realistic running profiles of trains verify that a TPS
setup is vulnerable to the FDI attacks, but these attacks can be detected
effectively by the proposed GAD while ensuring a low false positive rate.Comment: IEEE/IFIP DSN-2016 and ACM Trans. on Cyber-Physical System
Temperature dependent electrical resistivity of a single strand of ferromagnetic single crystalline nanowire
We have measured the electrical resistivity of a single strand of a
ferromagnetic Ni nanowire of diameter 55 nm using a 4-probe method in the
temperature range 3 K-300 K. The wire used is chemically pure and is a high
quality oriented single crystalline sample in which the temperature independent
residual resistivity is determined predominantly by surface scattering. Precise
evaluation of the temperature dependent resistivity () allowed us to
identify quantitatively the electron-phonon contribution (characterized by a
Debye temperature ) as well as the spin-wave contribution which is
significantly suppressed upon size reduction
Metabolism of ticagrelor in patients with acute coronary syndromes.
© The Author(s) 2018Ticagrelor is a state-of-the-art antiplatelet agent used for the treatment of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS). Unlike remaining oral P2Y12 receptor inhibitors ticagrelor does not require metabolic activation to exert its antiplatelet action. Still, ticagrelor is extensively metabolized by hepatic CYP3A enzymes, and AR-C124910XX is its only active metabolite. A post hoc analysis of patient-level (n = 117) pharmacokinetic data pooled from two prospective studies was performed to identify clinical characteristics affecting the degree of AR-C124910XX formation during the first six hours after 180 mg ticagrelor loading dose in the setting of ACS. Both linear and multiple regression analyses indicated that ACS patients presenting with ST-elevation myocardial infarction or suffering from diabetes mellitus are more likely to have decreased rate of ticagrelor metabolism during the acute phase of ACS. Administration of morphine during ACS was found to negatively influence transformation of ticagrelor into AR-C124910XX when assessed with linear regression analysis, but not with multiple regression analysis. On the other hand, smoking appears to increase the degree of ticagrelor transformation in ACS patients. Mechanisms underlying our findings and their clinical significance warrant further research.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio
Buckling without bending: a new paradigm in morphogenesis
A curious feature of organ and organoid morphogenesis is that in certain
cases, spatial oscillations in the thickness of the growing "film" are
out-of-phase with the deformation of the slower-growing "substrate," while in
other cases, the oscillations are in-phase. The former cannot be explained by
elastic bilayer instability, and contradict the notion that there is a
universal mechanism by which brains, intestines, teeth, and other organs
develop surface wrinkles and folds. Inspired by the microstructure of the
embryonic cerebellum, we develop a new model of 2d morphogenesis in which
system-spanning elastic fibers endow the organ with a preferred radius, while a
separate fiber network resides in the otherwise fluid-like film at the outer
edge of the organ and resists thickness gradients thereof. The tendency of the
film to uniformly thicken or thin is described via a "growth potential".
Several features of cerebellum, +blebbistatin organoid, and retinal fovea
morphogenesis, including out-of-phase behavior and a film thickness amplitude
that is comparable to the radius amplitude, are readily explained by our simple
analytical model, as may be an observed scale-invariance in the number of folds
in the cerebellum. We also study a nonlinear variant of the model, propose
further biological and bio-inspired applications, and address how our model is
and is not unique to the developing nervous system.Comment: version accepted by Physical Review
Grown-in defects and defects produced by 1-Me electron irradiated in Al0.3Ga0.7As P-N junction solar cells
Studies of grown-in defects and defects produced by the one-MeV electron irradiation in Al sub 0.3 Ga sub 0.7As p-n junction solar cells fabricated by liquid phase epitaxial (LPE) technique were made for the unirradiated and one-MeV electron irradiated samples, using DLTS and C-V methods. Defect and recombination parameters such as energy level, defect density, carrier capture cross sections and lifetimes were determined for various growth, annealing, and irradiation conditions
A reference model for information specification for metalworking SMEs
The work reported in this thesis offers a novel basis for the realisation of specifications for
information requirements to meet the distinct operational requirements of metalworking
SMEs. This has been achieved through the development of a reference SME enterprise
model based on fundamental ideas of the holon and fractal factory concepts. The novel
concept of a node holon is introduced, which allows the representation of the human
dominated interactions in a company based on the fundamental concepts of the holon. This
offers a competitive alternative to the methods for enterprise modelling and information
specification which are based solely around business processes and procedural rules.
A new representation for the organisation of the SME has been based on identifying the
major zones of activity within the enterprise, which is seen to provide a more appropriate
representation for companies whose basis for operation is informally structured. Two
classes of zones have been identified, these are the business support zone and
manufacturing zone. The relationship between a top down description of the enterprise as
zones and the complementary bottoms up modelling of the enterprise based on concepts of
the node holon are described in detail.
A critical study of two candidate modelling architectures, namely CIN40SA and ARIS will
show the applicability of the individual architectures for the task information specification.
The constituents of the SMEE enterprise reference model is placed within the context of
contemporary enterprise modelling practice by mapping against one of the architectures.
This will demonstrate how the architectures can readily accommodate new modelling
approaches whilst retaining their major advantages, thereby increasing their applicability
and potential uptake.
The reference SME enterprise model has been readily applied in the study of an SME,
where a representation of the company has been achieved solely on the current organisation
of its business support and manufacturing activities. The holonic aspects of the enterprise
have also been successfully modelled. This process is supported by a CASE tool which has
it constructs underpinned by the reference SME enterprise model
N=2 and N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills action on M x (Z + Z) non-commutative geometry
We show that the N=2 and N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills action can be reformulated in the sense of non-commutative geometry on M^4\times (Z_2\oplus Z_2) in a rather simple way. In this way the scalars or pseudoscalars are viewed as gauge fields along two directions in the space of one-forms on Z_2\oplus Z_2
- …