Optimal Checkpointing for Secure Intermittently-Powered IoT Devices

Energy harvesting is a promising solution to power Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Due to the intermittent nature of these energy sources, one cannot guarantee forward progress of program execution. Prior work has advocated for checkpointing the intermediate state to off-chip non-volatile memory (NVM). Encrypting checkpoints addresses the security concern, but significantly increases the checkpointing overheads. In this paper, we propose a new online checkpointing policy that judiciously determines when to checkpoint so as to minimize application time to completion while guaranteeing security. Compared to state-of-the-art checkpointing schemes that do not account for the overheads of encrypted checkpoints we improve execution time up to 1.4x.Comment: ICCAD 201

Does exercise training during pregnancy affect gestational age and gestational weight gain?

AbstractSome controversies exist over the possibility that exercise during pregnancy might increase the risk of preterm delivery. At the same time excessive gestational weight gain is increasing in prevalence and associated with a number of adverse pregnancy outcomes for both mother and child. This study aimed to determine the possible relationship between regular exercise of pregnancy and gestational weight gain and gestational age at the moment of delivery. This was a case-control survey. By using a continued method, performed on 250 women with one or two gestation were assigned to either a training (n=125) or a comparison (n=125) group. The supervised training was included three days a week, 30–45 min, from 20–26th weeks to 38–39th weeks of pregnancy. Pregnancy outcomes include of gestational weight gain and gestational age was recorded for two groups. Statistical analysis was performed using Students’ t-test, man-Whitney, and chi-squared test where appropriate. According finding of this study, No significant differences were found (p>0.05) between 2 groups for gestational age and exercise. The mean gestational age did not differ between the training (39 weeks ±1 day) and the comparison group (39 weeks, 4 days ±1.23 day). There were meaningful statistical evidences for exercise training and gestational weight gain at the time of delivery.According the findings of the present study, healthy gravid with one or two gestation can safely engage in moderate, supervised exercise programmed until the end of gestation as this would not affect gestational age. Also the program proved effective in reducing gestational weight gain at the time of delivery. Such programs should be considered as part of routine pregnancy care for pregnant women especially obese ones

ZKROWNN: Zero Knowledge Right of Ownership for Neural Networks

Training contemporary AI models requires investment in procuring learning data and computing resources, making the models intellectual property of the owners. Popular model watermarking solutions rely on key input triggers for detection; the keys have to be kept private to prevent discovery, forging, and removal of the hidden signatures. We present ZKROWNN, the first automated end-to-end framework utilizing Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) that enable an entity to validate their ownership of a model, while preserving the privacy of the watermarks. ZKROWNN permits a third party client to verify model ownership in less than a second, requiring as little as a few KBs of communication.Comment: Published and presented at DAC 202

Protocol for systematic review: peak bone mass pattern in different parts of the world

Copyright: © 2015 Mohammadi Z. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Peak bone mass, which can be defined as the amount of bone tissue present at the end of the skeletal maturation, and also it is an important determinant of osteoporotic fracture risk. The peak bone mass of a given part of the skeleton is directly dependent upon both its genetics and environmental factors. Therefore, the aim of the proposed research is a comprehensive systematic assessment of the pattern of peak bone mass in different countries across the globe. The present article explains the protocol for conducting such a research

Breast self examination and mammography in cancer screening: women health protective behavior

Background. Breast cancer (BC) is one of the leading causes of death among women. Secondary prevention may enable early detection, but this is suboptimal among all Iranian women. Methods. This was a descriptive, analytic cross sectional study on 385 women 35 years old or more with no history of BC. Par- ticipants were selected by simple randomized method and were assessed through a two-part self-administered questionnaire and a self-examination checklist with content validity and test-re-test reliability. Results. 14.8% of women carried out breast self examination (BSE). Among them 5.7% was done in adequate timing and 9.4% performed it on a regular basis. The average age of BSE onset was 20.1 ± 7.6 and mean of Score was 6.25 ± 2.26 (2-11). 2.3% of participants performed BSE poorly, 7.5% fairly and 1.6% per- formed it well. 25.84% of samples had a history of mammogra- phy that 13% of whom received it as a result of prescription. The average age for mammography was 36 ± 7.2 (20-50) years and the frequency of mammography was 1.8 ± 1.4 (1-8) of times. Due to the low percentage of breast cancer preventive behaviors, in this study knowledge towards breast cancer was also measured because they are factors that are crucial in performance. Conclusion. The results highlight the need to educate Iranian women to recognize the risk factors to promote early detection of breast cancer. Creation of health behavioral by focused edu- cational programs might cause decrease of breast cancer preva- lence

Recycling Study Project Summary

This project summary discusses the Recycling Study, which includes previous recycling efforts, our current recycling efforts, and recommendations for the future.https://red.library.usd.edu/sustainability-projects/1001/thumbnail.jp