Collaborative, Trust-Based Security Mechanisms for a National Utility Intranet

This thesis investigates security mechanisms for utility control and protection networks using IP-based protocol interaction. It proposes flexible, cost-effective solutions in strategic locations to protect transitioning legacy and full IP-standards architectures. It also demonstrates how operational signatures can be defined to enact organizationally-unique standard operating procedures for zero failure in environments with varying levels of uncertainty and trust. The research evaluates layering encryption, authentication, traffic filtering, content checks, and event correlation mechanisms over time-critical primary and backup control/protection signaling to prevent disruption by internal and external malicious activity or errors. Finally, it shows how a regional/national implementation can protect private communities of interest and foster a mix of both centralized and distributed emergency prediction, mitigation, detection, and response with secure, automatic peer-to-peer notifications that share situational awareness across control, transmission, and reliability boundaries and prevent wide-spread, catastrophic power outages

Constituting monetary conservatives via the 'savings habit': New Labour and the British housing market bubble

The ongoing world credit crunch might well kill off the most recent bubble dynamics in the British housing market by driving prices systematically downwards from their 2007 peak. Nonetheless, the experience of that bubble still warrants analytical attention. The Labour Government might not have been responsible for consciously creating it, but it has certainly grasped the opportunities the bubble has provided in an attempt to enforce a process of agential change at the heart of the British economy. The key issue in this respect is the way in which the Government has challenged the legitimacy of passive welfare receipts in favour of establishing a welfare system based on incorporating the individual into an active asset-holding society. The housing market has taken on new political significance as a means for individuals first to acquire assets and then to accumulate wealth on the back of asset ownership. The ensuing integration of the housing market into an increasingly reconfigured welfare system has permeated into the politics of everyday life. It has been consistent with individuals remaking their political subjectivities in line with preferences for the type of conservative monetary policies that typically keep house price bubbles inflated

Identification and quantification of microplastics in wastewater using focal plane array-based reflectance micro-FT-IR imaging

Microplastics (<5 mm) have been documented in environmental samples on a global scale. While these pollutants may enter aquatic environments via wastewater treatment facilities, the abundance of microplastics in these matrices has not been investigated. Although efficient methods for the analysis of microplastics in sediment samples and marine organisms have been published, no methods have been developed for detecting these pollutants within organic-rich wastewater samples. In addition, there is no standardized method for analyzing microplastics isolated from environmental samples. In many cases, part of the identification protocol relies on visual selection before analysis, which is open to bias. In order to address this, a new method for the analysis of microplastics in wastewater was developed. A pretreatment step using 30% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was employed to remove biogenic material, and focal plane array (FPA)-based reflectance micro-Fourier-transform (FT-IR) imaging was shown to successfully image and identify different microplastic types (polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon-6, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene). Microplastic-spiked wastewater samples were used to validate the methodology, resulting in a robust protocol which was nonselective and reproducible (the overall success identification rate was 98.33%). The use of FPA-based micro-FT-IR spectroscopy also provides a considerable reduction in analysis time compared with previous methods, since samples that could take several days to be mapped using a single-element detector can now be imaged in less than 9 h (circular filter with a diameter of 47 mm). This method for identifying and quantifying microplastics in wastewater is likely to provide an essential tool for further research into the pathways by which microplastics enter the environment.This work is funded by a NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) CASE studentship (NE/K007521/1) with contribution from industrial partner Fera Science Ltd., United Kingdom. The authors would like to thank Peter Vale, from Severn Trent Water Ltd, for providing access to and additionally Ashley Howkins (Brunel University London) for providing travel and assistance with the sampling of the Severn Trent wastewater treatment plant in Derbyshire, UK. We are grateful to Emma Bradley and Chris Sinclair for providing helpful suggestions for our research

The Effect of Temperature on the Physiological Condition and Immune-Capacity of European Lobsters (Homarus gammarus) During Long-Term Starvation

Decapod crustaceans, such as those from the Homarus genus, are key benthic representatives that support very valuable fishing and aquaculture industries. Those commercially caught, such as the European lobster (H. gammarus) can be stored in live facilities for short (a few days) to long periods (up to 6 months) before being traded. Conditions in captivity are not standardized, including holding temperatures or feeding regimes. Herein, the physiological condition during long-term starvation (24 weeks) in H. gammarus was assessed at three temperatures (4, 8, and 12°C). Our results indicate that, H. gammarus have the capacity to endure long-term starvation. Principal component analysis (PCA) of measured parameters showed two main components (Eigen value &gt;1). Fasted animals kept at 12°C, separated from all other experimental groups due to higher total phenoloxidase (PO) activity in the hemolymph and water content in the muscle, suggesting that keeping H. gammarus un-fed at this higher temperature is physiologically more demanding and detrimental. This was later confirmed by significant changes, particularly in this group, in the histology and lipid class composition of the hepatopancreas. These data call into question the suitability of current accepted in vivo condition markers (e.g., hemolymph protein concentration) to determine the physiological condition and welfare of decapods such as H. gammarus

Developing Telemental Health Partnerships Between State Medical Schools and Federally Qualified Health Centers: Navigating the Regulatory Landscape and Policy Recommendations

BackgroundFederally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) deliver care to 26 million Americans living in underserved areas, but few offer telemental health (TMH) services. The social missions of FQHCs and publicly funded state medical schools create a compelling argument for the development of TMH partnerships. In this paper, we share our experience and recommendations from launching TMH partnerships between 12 rural FQHCs and 3 state medical schools.ExperienceThere was consensus that medical school TMH providers should practice as part of the FQHC team to promote integration, enhance quality and safety, and ensure financial sustainability. For TMH providers to practice and bill as FQHC providers, the following issues must be addressed: (1) credentialing and privileging the TMH providers at the FQHC, (2) expanding FQHC Scope of Project to include telepsychiatry, (3) remote access to medical records, (4) insurance credentialing/paneling, billing, and supplemental payments, (5) contracting with the medical school, and (6) indemnity coverage for TMH.RecommendationsWe make recommendations to both state medical schools and FQHCs about how to overcome existing barriers to TMH partnerships. We also make recommendations about changes to policy that would mitigate the impact of these barriers. Specifically, we make recommendations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid about insurance credentialing, facility fees, eligibility of TMH encounters for supplemental payments, and Medicare eligibility rules for TMH billing by FQHCs. We also make recommendations to the Health Resources and Services Administration about restrictions on adding telepsychiatry to the FQHCsâ Scope of Project and the eligibility of TMH providers for indemnity coverage under the Federal Tort Claims Act.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149739/1/jrh12323_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149739/2/jrh12323.pd

Evolution of hindlimb muscle anatomy across the tetrapod water-to-land transition, including comparisons with forelimb anatomy

Tetrapod limbs are a key innovation implicated in the evolutionary success of the clade. Although musculoskeletal evolution of the pectoral appendage across the fins‐to‐limbs transition is fairly well documented, that of the pelvic appendage is much less so. The skeletal elements of the pelvic appendage in some tetrapodomorph fish and the earliest tetrapods are relatively smaller and/or qualitatively less similar to those of crown tetrapods than those of the pectoral appendage. However, comparative and developmental works have suggested that the musculature of the tetrapod forelimb and hindlimb was initially very similar, constituting a “similarity bottleneck” at the fins‐to‐limbs transition. Here we used extant phylogenetic bracketing and phylogenetic character optimization to reconstruct pelvic appendicular muscle anatomy in several key taxa spanning the fins‐to‐limbs and water‐to‐land transitions. Our results support the hypothesis that transformation of the pelvic appendages from fin‐like to limb‐like lagged behind that of the pectoral appendages. Compared to similar reconstructions of the pectoral appendages, the pelvic appendages of the earliest tetrapods had fewer muscles, particularly in the distal limb (shank). In addition, our results suggest that the first tetrapods had a greater number of muscle‐muscle topological correspondences between the pectoral and pelvic appendages than tetrapodomorph fish had. However, ancestral crown‐group tetrapods appear to have had an even greater number of similar muscles (both in terms of number and as a percentage of the total number of muscles), indicating that the main topological similarity bottleneck between the paired appendages may have occurred at the origin of the tetrapod crown group

Deep Learning for Single-Molecule Science

Exploring and making predictions based on single-molecule data can be challenging, not only due to the sheer size of the datasets, but also because a priori knowledge about the signal characteristics is typically limited and poor signal-to-noise ratio. For example, hypothesis-driven data exploration, informed by an expectation of the signal characteristics, can lead to interpretation bias or loss of information. Equally, even when the different data categories are known, e.g., the four bases in DNA sequencing, it is often difficult to know how to make best use of the available information content. The latest developments in Machine Learning (ML), so-called Deep Learning (DL) offers an interesting, new avenues to address such challenges. In some applications, such as speech and image recognition, DL has been able to outperform conventional Machine Learning strategies and even human performance. However, to date DL has not been applied much in single-molecule science, presumably in part because relatively little is known about the 'internal workings' of such DL tools within single-molecule science as a field. In this Tutorial, we make an attempt to illustrate in a step-by-step guide how one of those, a Convolutional Neural Network, may be used for base calling in DNA sequencing applications. We compare it with a Support Vector Machine as a more conventional ML method, and and discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach. In particular, a 'deep' neural network has many features of a 'black box', which has important implications on how we look at and interpret data

Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Adipogenic Reduction by Prohibitin Silencing in 3T3-L1 Cells

Increase in mitochondrial biogenesis has been shown to accompany brown and white adipose cell differentiation. Prohibitins (PHBs), comprised of two evolutionarily conserved proteins, prohibitin-1 (PHB1) and prohibitin-2 (PHB2), are present in a high molecular-weight complex in the inner membrane of mitochondria. However, little is known about the effect of mitochondrial PHBs in adipogenesis. In the present study, we demonstrate that the levels of both PHB1 and PHB2 are significantly increased during adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes, especially in mitochondria. Knockdown of PHB1 or PHB2 by oligonucleotide siRNA significantly reduced the expression of adipogenic markers, the accumulation of lipids and the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases. In addition, fragmentation of mitochondrial reticulum, loss of mitochondrial cristae, reduction of mitochondrial content, impairment of mitochondrial complex I activity and excessive production of ROS were observed upon PHB-silencing in 3T3-L1 cells. Our results suggest that PHBs are critical mediators in promoting 3T3-L1 adipocyte differentiation and may be the potential targets for obesity therapies

Expanding research to provide an evidence base for nutritional interventions for the management of inborn errors of metabolism

A trans-National Institutes of Health initiative, Nutrition and Dietary Supplement Interventions for Inborn Errors of Metabolism (NDSI-IEM), was launched in 2010 to identify gaps in knowledge regarding the safety and utility of nutritional interventions for the management of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) that need to be filled with evidence-based research. IEM include inherited biochemical disorders in which specific enzyme defects interfere with the normal metabolism of exogenous (dietary) or endogenous protein, carbohydrate, or fat. For some of these IEM, effective management depends primarily on nutritional interventions. Further research is needed to demonstrate the impact of nutritional interventions on individual health outcomes and on the psychosocial issues identified by patients and their families. A series of meetings and discussions were convened to explore the current United States’ funding and regulatory infrastructure and the challenges to the conduct of research for nutritional interventions for the management of IEM. Although the research and regulatory infrastructure are well-established, a collaborative pathway that includes the professional and advocacy rare disease community and federal regulatory and research agencies will be needed to overcome current barriers

Decline of Birds in a Human Modified Coastal Dune Forest Landscape in South Africa

Previous studies demonstrate that old-growth forest remnants and vegetation regenerating after anthropogenic disturbance provide habitat for birds in a human modified coastal dune forest landscape in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. However, occurrence does not ensure persistence. Based on a 13-year monitoring database we calculated population trends for 37 bird species and general trends in overall bird density in different vegetation types. We evaluated species' characteristics as covariates of population trend and assessed changes in rainfall and proportional area and survey coverage per vegetation type. 76% of species assessed have declined, 57% significantly so at an average rate of 13.9% per year. Overall, bird density has fallen at 12.2% per year across old-growth forest and woody regenerating vegetation types. Changes in proportional area and coverage per vegetation type may partly explain trends for a few species but are unlikely to account for most. Below average rainfall may have contributed to bird declines. However, other possibilities warrant further investigation. Species with larger range extents tended to decline more sharply than did others, and these species may be responding to environmental changes on a broader geographical scale. Our results cast doubt on the future persistence of birds in this human modified landscape. More research is needed to elucidate the mechanisms driving population decline in the study area and to investigate whether the declines identified here are more widespread across the region and perhaps the continent