Converting Serious Safety Events into Educational Opportunities

Over the past year, the Associate Director of the Simulation Center worked with the EM Quality and Safety Director to identify serious safety events (SSE) and critical incidents. As part of the case review, an informal root cause analysis (RCA) was conducted and root causes related to safety risks or breakdowns were identified. These system vulnerabilities were woven into simulation cases for hospital code team training. The cases focused on skills and attitudes that would help prevent, capture, or mitigate similar vulnerabilities while providing clinical care. The objective of this educational innovation was to intentionally translate lessons learned from SSE into changes in clinical practice through the use of RCA followed by simulation

Acilaçao de aminas utilizando o ácido 3-acetóxi-2-naftóico:Efeito do grupo carboxilato na catálise intramolecular

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Ciências Físicas e Matemáticas, Curso de Química.O estudo de modelos enzimático do tipo não mimético de catálise intramolecular viabiliza o desenvolvimento de catalisadores que sejam eficientes e seletivos. Além disso, fornece informações valiosas da dinâmica que ocorre no centro ativo de enzimas, responsáveis pelo notável desempenho dos sistemas biológicos. Tendo em vista o contexto referido, foi estudado o ácido 3-acetóxi 2- naftóico (3Ac), preparado a partir da acilação do ácido 3-hidróxi-2-naftóico (3OH), como possível reagente para a acilação de metilamina,hexilamina, dodecilamina, dietilamina, N-metilbutilamina e difenilamina em etanol, visando a compreensão dessas reações e o desenvolvimento de métodos seletivos e brandos de acilação, contribuindo para o ideal de “Química Verde”. As reações foram acompanhadas empregando-se espectrometria de UV-Vis em etanol e 1,4-dioxano e os produtos identificados por 1H RMN. Os resultados indicaram que a velocidade de acilação das aminas é maior quanto menor o tamanho da cadeia e que aminas secundárias são aciladas com uma velocidade inferior às primárias, indicando o 3Ac como um potencial acilador seletivo. Além disso, resultados preliminares permitem especular sobre o mecanismo das reações e do papel primordial do solvente nestas reações

Multicodes for improved range resolution in radar

Third generation (3G) wireless systems are required to support a variety of communication services like voice, image, motion picture transmission, etc, each of which requires different transmission rates. Multi-code modulation has been introduced therefore as a means of supporting multi-rate services and operating in multi-cell environments [8, 9, 10]. This multi-rate multi-function capability may be used in Radar related applications, too. For example, a single transmitted waveform consisting of two orthogonal codes can be used to simultaneously track a target and obtain high range resolution. Tracking requires low bandwidth and high resolution needs a high bandwidth signal. Orthogonal codes like Walsh codes can be used to provide multiple rates if the codes are chosen from the same matrix, because certain Walsh codes of the same length have very different bandwidths. Therefore, as an extension to its use in communication, multi-codes can be used to enable multi-function operations in a Radar system. The first criterion for choosing a Radar waveform, whether single or multi-code, is its resolving capability in range and Doppler. A measure of range resolution or sensitivity to delay commonly used in Radar literature is the Peak to Sidelobe Level Ratio (PSLR) of the code\u27s autocorrelation function. The multi-codes proposed in this work are found to have better (lower) PSLRs than existing radar codes when the number of simultaneously transmitted codes is large. In the special case of using an entire set of orthogonal codes of any length, the resulting multi-code consists of just a single pulse of thickness equal to the chip width of the code used. This pulse will have a \u27perfect\u27 autocorrelation function with only a single peak at the main lobe and zero sidelobes. This gives the ideal PSLR for radar purposes. An important aspect of using multi-codes in Radar is the need for multiple transmitters to avoid the high peak factor that would result if only a single antenna 15 used. This requires the Radar system to have multiple transmitters as in phased array radar. The best example is a multi-function digital array radar that transmits a unique orthogonal code from each of its antenna elements as described by Rabideau and Parker in [13]. The system described in this publication makes use of the array mode of operation of the Radar to transmit orthogonal codes from each antenna element which are then phased and combined at the receiver. The phase (or angle) of the signal at each receive antenna element can be used to better resolve targets that are spatially separated. This thesis introduces the concept of multicodes in Radar. Further, the advantages of using multiple coded waveforms over the known Radar polyphase codes are demonstrated by simulations

Cross-Cultural Soft Skills and the Global Engineer: Corporate Best Practices and Trainer Methodologies

At the 9th Annual Colloquium on International Engineering in November of 2006, the consensus between corporate and academic presenters/attendees was that global engineering students need not only to develop foreign language proficiency, but must just as importantly develop cross-cultural, adaptive soft skills which will assist them in working collaboratively in their co-ops, internships and expatriate assignments. While university engineering programs often focus on hard technical skills, it is becoming increasingly evident that in order to compete in a global environment, international engineering students must become competent in both foreign language and culture. By examining the best practices of international companies and the programs developed by cross-cultural trainers, university programs can begin to better develop criteria and standards for their programs, thereby insuring their students have the best possible training as global engineers

Symmetry breaking and friction in few layer phosphorene

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowshi

On the presence of Solanum rostratum (Solanaceae) in South America : a toxic neophyte with great potential as a weed

Se comunica por primera vez la presencia de Solanum rostratum Dunal (Solanaceae) en Sudamérica, sobre la base de ejemplares de San Luis (Argentina) y Bogotá (Colombia). Se describe e ilustra la especie, y se discute las características biológicas que pueden favorecer su dispersión en las condiciones locales. Es una planta anual que se reproduce por semillas y se distingue de otras especies aculeadas silvestres de Solanum por sus hojas 1-2 pinnatífidas, cubierta de aguijones densos y delgados y tricomas estrellados, flores zigomorfas con corola amarillo intenso y notoria heteranteria, con un estambre de polinización de forma curva y mucho más grande que los otros cuatro, que sirven para la alimentación de prónubos. Estos registros constituyen los primeros para la flora de ambos países y para toda Sudamérica. La importancia de su hallazgo radica en su enorme potencial como maleza invasora, tóxica.The presence of Solanum rostratum Dunal (Solanaceae) in South America, on the basis of samples from San Luis (Argentina) and Bogotá (Colombia) is communicated for the first time. The species is described and illustrated, and biological characteristics that can promote its spread in local conditions are discussed. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seeds. It differs from other aculeate wild species of Solanum by their 1-2 pinnatifid leaves, coated with dense and slender spines and stellate hairs, zygomorphic flowers with bright yellow corolla and a marked heteranthery, with a pollinating, curved stamen much bigger than the other four, which serve to feed pronubes. This is the first record for the flora of both countries and South America as a whole. The importance of their find lies in its huge potential as an invasive, toxic weed.Fil: Del Vitto, Luis A.. Universidad Nacional de San LuisFil: Petenatti, Elisa M.. Universidad Nacional de San Lui

Security, Scalability and Privacy in Applied Cryptography

In the modern digital world, cryptography finds its place in countless applications. However, as we increasingly use technology to perform potentially sensitive tasks, our actions and private data attract, more than ever, the interest of ill-intentioned actors. Due to the possible privacy implications of cryptographic flaws, new primitives’ designs need to undergo rigorous security analysis and extensive cryptanalysis to foster confidence in their adoption. At the same time, implementations of cryptographic protocols should scale on a global level and be efficiently deployable on users’ most common devices to widen the range of their applications. This dissertation will address the security, scalability and privacy of cryptosystems by presenting new designs and cryptanalytic results regarding blockchain cryptographic primitives and public-key schemes based on elliptic curves. In Part I, I will present the works I have done in regards to accumulator schemes. More precisely, in Chapter 2, I cryptanalyze Au et al. Dynamic Universal Accumulator, by showing some attacks which can completely take over the authority who manages the accumulator. In Chapter 3, I propose a design for an efficient and secure accumulator-based authentication mechanism, which is scalable, privacy-friendly, lightweight on the users’ side, and suitable to be implemented on the blockchain. In Part II, I will report some cryptanalytical results on primitives employed or considered for adoption in top blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. In particular, in Chapter 4, I describe how the zero-knowledge proof system and the commitment scheme adopted by the privacy-friendly cryptocurrency Zcash, contain multiple subliminal channels which can be exploited to embed several bytes of tagging information in users’ private transactions. In Chapter 5, instead, I report the cryptanalysis of the Legendre PRF, employed in a new consensus mechanism considered for adoption by the blockchain-based platform Ethereum, and attacks for further generalizations of this pseudo-random function, such as the Higher-Degree Legendre PRF, the Jacobi Symbol PRF, and the Power-Residue PRF. Lastly, in Part III, I present my line of research on public-key primitives based on elliptic curves. In Chapter 6, I will describe a backdooring procedure for primes so that whenever they appear as divisors of a large integer, the latter can be efficiently factored. This technique, based on elliptic curves Complex Multiplication theory, enables to eventually generate non-vulnerable certifiable semiprimes with unknown factorization in a multi-party computation setting, with no need to run a statistical semiprimality test common to other protocols. In Chapter 7, instead, I will report some attack optimizations and specific implementation design choices that allow breaking a reduced-parameters instance, proposed by Microsoft, of SIKE, a post-quantum key-encapsulation mechanism based on isogenies between supersingular elliptic curves