Ocean warming-acidification synergism undermines dissolved organic matter assembly.

Understanding the influence of synergisms on natural processes is a critical step toward determining the full-extent of anthropogenic stressors. As carbon emissions continue unabated, two major stressors--warming and acidification--threaten marine systems on several scales. Here, we report that a moderate temperature increase (from 30°C to 32°C) is sufficient to slow--even hinder--the ability of dissolved organic matter, a major carbon pool, to self-assemble to form marine microgels, which contribute to the particulate organic matter pool. Moreover, acidification lowers the temperature threshold at which we observe our results. These findings carry implications for the marine carbon cycle, as self-assembled marine microgels generate an estimated global seawater budget of ~1016 g C. We used laser scattering spectroscopy to test the influence of temperature and pH on spontaneous marine gel assembly. The results of independent experiments revealed that at a particular point, both pH and temperature block microgel formation (32°C, pH 8.2), and disperse existing gels (35°C). We then tested the hypothesis that temperature and pH have a synergistic influence on marine gel dispersion. We found that the dispersion temperature decreases concurrently with pH: from 32°C at pH 8.2, to 28°C at pH 7.5. If our laboratory observations can be extrapolated to complex marine environments, our results suggest that a warming-acidification synergism can decrease carbon and nutrient fluxes, disturbing marine trophic and trace element cycles, at rates faster than projected

Event Encryption: Rethinking Privacy Exposure for Neuromorphic Imaging

Bio-inspired neuromorphic cameras sense illumination changes on a per-pixel basis and generate spatiotemporal streaming events within microseconds in response, offering visual information with high temporal resolution over a high dynamic range. Such devices often serve in surveillance systems due to their applicability and robustness in environments with high dynamics and strong or weak lighting, where they can still supply clearer recordings than traditional imaging. In other words, when it comes to privacy-relevant cases, neuromorphic cameras also expose more sensitive data and thus pose serious security threats. Therefore, asynchronous event streams also necessitate careful encryption before transmission and usage. This letter discusses several potential attack scenarios and approaches event encryption from the perspective of neuromorphic noise removal, in which we inversely introduce well-crafted noise into raw events until they are obfuscated. Evaluations show that the encrypted events can effectively protect information from the attacks of low-level visual reconstruction and high-level neuromorphic reasoning, and thus feature dependable privacy-preserving competence. Our solution gives impetus to the security of event data and paves the way to a highly encrypted technique for privacy-protective neuromorphic imaging

EXPLORING CONSUMER VALUE OF CROSS-BORDER ONLINE SHOPPING: AN APPLICATION OF MEANS-END CHAIN THEORY AND MASLOW\u27S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

While online shopping websites are facing the difficulties of price and low-quality competition, cross- border online shopping is on a vigorous development trend, showing that cross-border online shopping is an important trend of online shopping field. Due to the complexity of cross-border online shopping is much higher than the traditional domestic online shopping, so understanding the value of cross-border online shopping consumers is the most important success factors. Companies want to develop new markets abroad, must understand the local consumer’s behaviour and their decision-making process in order to make good business strategies. This study uses means-end chain to construct Taiwanese cross-border online shopping consumers’ hierarchical value map, and also uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to sort these value elements’ importance. After obtained the reason why consumers use cross-border online shopping service and what values they got in this service. Researcher can predict and analyse the evolution and development of cross- border online shopping, provide reference for future online shopping academic studies and online shopping industry’s decision-making

Comments on Baryon Melting in Quark Gluon Plasma with Gluon Condensation

We consider a black hole solution with a non-trivial dilaton from IIB super gravity which is expected to describe a strongly coupled hot gauge plasma with non-vanishing gluon condensation present. We construct a rotating and moving baryon to probe the screening and phases of the plasma. Melting of the baryons in hot plasma in this background had been studied previously, however, we show that baryons melt much lower temperature than has been suggested previously.Comment: 3 figures, 12 page

Extracting Source Level Program Similarities from Dynamic Behavior

The vast majority of work on comparing program similarities to detect software piracy either assumes the availability of the program source code (e.g., Moss) or performs a complicated source program transformation to embed carefully designed signatures, or software watermarks, into the binary code. In this paper, we propose a new approach to detecting program similarities that requires neither the availability of the program source nor complicated compile-time watermarking techniques. Furthermore, in contrast to the alternatives, our framework is resistant to standard attacks such as code obfuscation. Our approach exploits the observation that the sequence of system calls performed by a program execution provides a strong signature of the program semantics or functionality, thereby using the inherent properties of a program to identify it. By statistically analyzing sequences of system calls, the relative similarities and differences of program regions can be automatically determined. We have developed a framework that automatically extracts system call sequences, computes the similarities between two binaries via statistical analysis, and maps dynamically similar regions onto textually similar source files. We present several case studies showing the applicability of our framework in pinpointing pirated segments. Our experimental study also shows that directly comparing the binary files of the programs without considering their dynamic behavior is ineffective, and demonstrates strong consistency between the output of our new framework and that of Moss

Supersymmetric Extension of the Minimal Dark Matter Model

The minimal dark matter model is given a supersymmetric extension. A super SU(2)L quintuplet is introduced with its fermionic neutral component still being the dark matter, the dark matter particle mass is about 19.7 GeV. Mass splitting among the quintplet due to supersymmetry particles is found to be negligibly small compared to the electroweak corrections. Other properties of this supersymmetry model are studied, it has the solutions to the PAMELA and Fermi-LAT anomaly, the predictions in higher energies need further experimental data to verify.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Chinese Physics C, typos correcte

Optofluidic ultrahigh-throughput detection of fluorescent drops

This paper describes an optofluidic droplet interrogation device capable of counting fluorescent drops at a throughput of 254000 drops per second. To our knowledge, this rate is the highest interrogation rate published thus far. Our device consists of 16 parallel microfluidic channels bonded directly to a filter-coated two-dimensional Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) sensor array. Fluorescence signals emitted from the drops are collected by the sensor that forms the bottom of the channel. The proximity of the drops to the sensor facilitates efficient collection of fluorescence emission from the drops, and overcomes the trade-off between light collection efficiency and field of view in conventional microscopy. The interrogation rate of our device is currently limited by the acquisition speed of CMOS sensor, and is expected to increase further as high-speed sensors become increasingly available

A mixture of anatase and rutile TiO2 nanoparticles induces histamine secretion in mast cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Histamine released from mast cells, through complex interactions involving the binding of IgE to FcεRI receptors and the subsequent intracellular Ca²⁺signaling, can mediate many allergic/inflammatory responses. The possibility of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂NPs), a nanomaterial pervasively used in nanotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, to directly induce histamine secretion without prior allergen sensitization has remained uncertain.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>TiO₂NP exposure increased both histamine secretion and cytosolic Ca²⁺concentration ([Ca²⁺]_C) in a dose dependent manner in rat RBL-2H3 mast cells. The increase in intracellular Ca²⁺levels resulted primarily from an extracellular Ca²⁺influx via membrane L-type Ca²⁺channels. Unspecific Ca²⁺entry via TiO₂NP-instigated membrane disruption was demonstrated with the intracellular leakage of a fluorescent calcein dye. Oxidative stress induced by TiO₂NPs also contributed to cytosolic Ca²⁺signaling. The PLC-IP₃-IP₃receptor pathways and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) were responsible for the sustained elevation of [Ca²⁺]_Cand histamine secretion.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data suggests that systemic circulation of NPs may prompt histamine release at different locales causing abnormal inflammatory diseases. This study provides a novel mechanistic link between environmental TiO₂NP exposure and allergen-independent histamine release that can exacerbate manifestations of multiple allergic responses.</p

Human stem cell neuronal differentiation on silk-carbon nanotube composite

Human embryonic stem cells [hESCs] are able to differentiate into specific lineages corresponding to regulated spatial and temporal signals. This unique attribute holds great promise for regenerative medicine and cell-based therapy for many human diseases such as spinal cord injury [SCI] and multiple sclerosis [MS]. Carbon nanotubes [CNTs] have been successfully used to promote neuronal differentiation, and silk has been widely applied in tissue engineering. This study aims to build silk-CNT composite scaffolds for improved neuron differentiation efficiency from hESCs