Blockchain-driven dual-channel green supply chain game model considering government subsidies

In order to improve the performance of green supply chain and promote the adoption of blockchain, this paper establishes a dual-channel green supply chain consisting of a green manufacturer and a retailer, and builds Stackelberg game model considering different scenarios. We analyze the impact of blockchain operating costs and consumer uncertainty about the product greenness. Furthermore, we study the government subsidy for manufacturers' green costs and its impact on supply chain performance and blockchain adoption. Findings reveal that without blockchain technology, government subsidy can improve manufacturers' and retailers' profits. However, when blockchain is adopted, the subsidy effect depends on the blockchain operating costs. In case of higher blockchain operating cost, the product prices and greenness decrease as the green cost subsidies increase; In case of lower blockchain operating cost, the increase in green cost subsidies will lead to increased product prices and greenness; Green cost subsidies can raise profits and lower the blockchain adoption threshold

Group Consensus of Heterogenous Continuous-time Multi-agent Systems

This paper considers the group consensus problem for continuous-time linear heterogeneous multi-agent systems with undirected and directed fixed topology. In order to obtain group consensus, we use two partition coefficients to divide all second-order agents and all first-order agents as the two groups, a novel protocol is designed. By constructing the Lyapunov function, a sufficient condition for group consensus under undirected topology are proved. Based on a system transformation method, the group consensus for heterogeneous multi-agent systems is transformed into a group consensus for homogeneous multi-agent systems. We also find the convergence points of the two groups, it has great significance. Finally, numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results

EFFECTS OF LOWER EXTREMITY STRENGTH TRAINING ON GAIT PATTERNS IN OBESE CHILDREN

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of muscle strength training on gait patterns in obese children. This study included 14 obese children who were required to complete 8 week lower extremity strength training. All participants went through a 3D gait analysis and an isokinetic strength test before and after training. With the improvement in muscle strength, walking speed and stride length significantly increased after intervention. Hip flexion moment and hip power generation increased 31.1% and 22.4%, respectively. Hip and knee power absorption also significantly increased. We concluded that the strength training improved obese children’s ability to promote locomotion through greater propulsion. Muscle strength plays an important role in attenuating the negative effects that obesity has on gait characteristics and kinetics

Machine Learning Detection and Analysis on Obfuscated Android Malware

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Android is the leading mobile operating system, accounting for more than 80% of the market share. Millions of Android apps exist in various app markets such as GooglePlay, AppChina, Huawei app store, etc. The success of Android has attracted the interest of hackers who build thousands and even millions of Android malware that are distributed over the app markets. Detecting such malware is thus of the utmost importance to preserve the security and privacy of billions of Android app users. In this thesis, the author focuses on three main research challenges. First, the author investigates the problem of Android malware labeling. This is a key challenge that needs to be overcome to build reference datasets, to then be able to use AI techniques. Second, he investigates the impact of obfuscation and deobfuscation on the detection of piggybacked apps. Finally, he studies the problem of generating relevant testing samples (i.e., adversarial samples) to assess antivirus products

Security enhancement for NOMA-UAV networks

Owing to its distinctive merits, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) techniques have been utilized in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enabled wireless base stations to provide effective coverage for terrestrial users. However, the security of NOMA-UAV systems remains a challenge due to the line-of-sight air-to-ground channels and higher transmission power of weaker users in NOMA. In this paper, we propose two schemes to guarantee the secure transmission in UAV-NOMA networks. When only one user requires secure transmission, we derive the hovering position for the UAV and the power allocation to meet rate threshold of the secure user while maximizing the sum rate of remaining users. This disrupts the eavesdropping towards the secure user effectively. When multiple users require secure transmission, we further take the advantage of beamforming via multiple antennas at the UAV to guarantee their secure transmission. Due to the non-convexity of this problem, we convert it into a convex one for an iterative solution by using the second order cone programming. Finally, simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme

Effect of Storage Conditions and Time on the Polyphenol Content of Wheat Flours

Whole wheat flour possesses many nutritional properties because of its abundant bioactive components which are affected by cultivar, but little attention is paid to its relationship with storage conditions. In this study, phenolic extracts of whole wheat flour from four cultivars stored under different conditions (aerated and under vacuum) and different times (0, 2, 4, 8 weeks) were obtained. The total polyphenol (TPC) and flavonoid (TFC) contents, composition of phenolic acids, and antioxidant activities (AA) of phenolic extracts were evaluated. The results showed that Verna exhibited the highest levels of TPC, TFC, and AA for both storage conditions among the four cultivars. Moisture content, TFC, and AA fluctuated during storage. After 8 weeks, the TPC, TFC, and AA decreased with respect to Week 0 in all the cultivars. The TPC losses ranged between 16.39% and 20.88% and TFC losses from 14.08% to 31.18%. The AA losses were approximately 30% from the DPPH assay, but no significant losses were shown in the FRAP assay. However, these parameters were not distinctive between the two storage conditions. The wheat phenolic acid profiles were influenced more by storage time than storage conditions in all cultivars. Overall, the results validate the effect of the storage time on wheat polyphenol