PROTECT: Proximity-based Trust-advisor using Encounters for Mobile Societies

Many interactions between network users rely on trust, which is becoming particularly important given the security breaches in the Internet today. These problems are further exacerbated by the dynamics in wireless mobile networks. In this paper we address the issue of trust advisory and establishment in mobile networks, with application to ad hoc networks, including DTNs. We utilize encounters in mobile societies in novel ways, noticing that mobility provides opportunities to build proximity, location and similarity based trust. Four new trust advisor filters are introduced - including encounter frequency, duration, behavior vectors and behavior matrices - and evaluated over an extensive set of real-world traces collected from a major university. Two sets of statistical analyses are performed; the first examines the underlying encounter relationships in mobile societies, and the second evaluates DTN routing in mobile peer-to-peer networks using trust and selfishness models. We find that for the analyzed trace, trust filters are stable in terms of growth with time (3 filters have close to 90% overlap of users over a period of 9 weeks) and the results produced by different filters are noticeably different. In our analysis for trust and selfishness model, our trust filters largely undo the effect of selfishness on the unreachability in a network. Thus improving the connectivity in a network with selfish nodes. We hope that our initial promising results open the door for further research on proximity-based trust

The Menon-Žižek Debate: “The Tale of the (Never-marked) (But secretly coded) Universal and the (Always marked) Particular . . .”

On occasion of his first lecture tour of India in 2010, Žižek sparked off a debate with Nivedita Menon, a leading postcolonial feminist scholar. The debate revolves around Menon\u27s contention that Žižek\u27s emphasis on European, Christian Universalism as the most proactive model for countering capitalism is ignorant of the heteroglossiac postcolonial histories of South Asia. Menon\u27s response (“The Two Žižeks”) suggests that what Žižek appears to be missing is knowledge of the fallibility of Eurocentric discourses in negotiating the colonial and postcolonial situations particular to the subcontinent. Though Žižek\u27s debates with Badiou and Butler are well known, few outside India are aware of the Menon-Žižek debate. This paper will occasion this little known debate to consider some of the major points raised by Menon against the applicability of Žižek\u27s theoretical arguments toward reading and understanding postcolonial politics and culture

“You Should Pray I Choose the Latter”: Rioting, Violence, & Jouissance

In the climactic scene from the film The Great Debaters (2007), James L. Framer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), speaking for the motion “Resolved: Civil Disobedience is a Moral weapon in the fight for Justice,” rebuts the opponent team from Harvard University and clinches a win for his team, Wiley College, with the following words: St. Augustine said an unjust law is no law at all, which means I have a right, even a duty, to resist. With violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter. (1:52:20 – 1:55:45) Farmer Jr.’s words receive a standing ovation from the predominantly white, upper class, urban and educated on-screen audience, and cues audiences watching the film to two things. First, and unsurprisingly, it references Wiley College’s historic win against Harvard that was announced moments later in the film. And, secondly, it reasserts what today has become a culture-cliché, namely, civil disobedience or nonviolent protests against social injustice are moral, even desired, compared to violent demonstrations that benefit no one. In so doing The Great Debaters becomes more than a partly fictionalized account of an historic event – Wiley College was the first historically Black college from Jim Crow South to win a regional debate championship (they defeated the University of Southern California depicted as Harvard in the film) –, it functions rather as an ideological tool teaching its viewers about not only what social changes to desire but also how to act upon realizing this desire for social change. Simply put, mass movements demanding social changes are necessary, even required, but these must always remain nonviolent. The choice given in Farmer Jr.’s last sentence – “You should pray I choose the latter” – is therefore not so much a choice as it is an affirmation of nonviolent civil disobedience as the only moral form of protest against unjust social laws

Effect of packaging on phenols, flavonoids and antioxidant characteristics of mechanical cabinet dried wild pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) arils

Wild pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) fruit arils with high acid content are processed into dried arils (anardana) which is used as an ingredient in various medicinal formulations and culinary preparations. The various phenols and flavonoids are responsible for the antioxidant activity of anardana which signifies its functional benefits. The advanced packaging techniques like vacuum packaging, can retain higher antioxidant activity characteristics during storage. So, the present studies were carried out to compare the effect of packaging on total phenols, flavonoids, DPPH (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) antioxidant activity, metal chelating activity, FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) and reducing power of anardana prepared in mechanical cabinet drier. Anardana was packed in different packaging materials and stored under ambient and refrigerated temperature conditions. The overall effect of storage during 12 months revealed that there was a significant (p< 0.05) decrease in total phenols (180.95 to 161.76 mg GAE/100 g), flavonoids (40.60 to 32.66 mg QuE/100 g), DPPH antioxidant activity (61.23 to 56.13%), metal chelating activity (22.25 to 19.37%), FRAP (34.60 to 31.73 ?M Fe2+/100 g) and reducing power (0.610 to 0.521) which was observed less in anardana packed in ALPV (aluminium laminated pouches with vacuum) followed by ALP (aluminium laminated pouches) and gunny bags. Due to slower rates of degradation of various antioxidant compounds, the changes after 12 months of storage were lower under refrigerated conditions. The total phenols, flavonoids and DPPH antioxidant activity were reduced  from 180.95 to 167.24 and 156.28 mg GAE/100 g, 40.60 to 34.95 and 30.37 mg QuE/100 g and 61.23 to 57.99 and 54.27 % in refrigerated and ambient temperature conditions, respectively

Guest Editors\u27 Introduction: Toward Decolonized and Student-Centered Teaching of Critical Theory

An Introduction to a Cluster on Teaching Theory in Global Context

A REVIEW ON RECENT ADVANCEMENT IN PULSATILE DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS

Delivery systems with a pulsatile-release method are particularly involved in designing medicines for which traditional managed drug-release systems with the continuous release are not suitable. This medication also has a high first-pass impact or special conditions for chrono-pharmacology. These medications also have a high first-pass or unique chronopharmacological effect. The pulsatile release profile is characterised by a duration of no release (lag time) followed by a fast and full release of the drug. Pulsatile drug delivery systems may be classified into site-specific systems in which the drug is released inside the gastrointestinal system (e. g. colon) or time-controlled devices wherein the drug is released after a well-defined time period. Site-regulated release is typically controlled by environmental factors, such as pH or enzymes found in the intestinal tract, whereas drug release from time-controlled processes is controlled mainly by the delivery system and, preferably, not by the environment. This review covers various single-and multiple-unit oral pulsatile drug-delivery systems with an emphasis on time-controlled drug-release systems