Protecting Online Privacy

Online privacy has become one of the greatest concerns in the United States today. There are currently multiple stakeholders with interests in online privacy including the public, industry, and the United States government. This study examines the issues surrounding the protection of online privacy. Privacy laws in the United States are currently outdated and do little to protect online privacy. These laws are unlikely to be changed as both the government and industry have interests in keeping these privacy laws lax. To bridge the gap between the desired level of online privacy and what is provided legally users may turn to technological solutions

The use of social skills training and its impact on the behaviors of elementary students with multiple handicaps

This study examined the use of social skills training and its impact on the behaviors of elementary students with multiple handicaps. The two main areas of focus were to improve social conformity and ego strength. Deficits were discovered in these two areas after a pre-test was given to the eleven subjects using the Burk\u27s Behavior Rating Scale and after reviewing the students\u27 Individual Education Plans (lEP\u27s). The students then underwent a ten lesson unit that attempted to increase their social and peer interactions and therefore their self-esteem. The students were taught through modeling, prompting, discussion, direct instruction, role-playing, and discovery. The main focus was through physical education lessons and subsequent discussions. The games were chosen because they lend themselves to goal setting, making friends, being helpful, learning to communicate, and thus with the goal of improving self-esteem. The results indicated that the students showed marked improvement in the area of ego strength and a satisfactory level of improvement in the area of social conformity

An Analysis of Tools for Online Anonymity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible explanations for the slow adoption and development of online anonymity technology. The ability to remain anonymous while engaging in different activities, online is increasingly sought after by consumers with privacy concerns. Currently, the only way to maintain online anonymity is through the use of technology. This paper reviews and analyzes the tools currently available to consumers to maintain online anonymity. There are only four tools available to consumers to ensure online anonymity: anonymous remailers, rewebbers, The Onion Router (Tor) and the Invisible Internet Project (I2P). These tools provide the protection needed for an Internet user to remain anonymous but suffer from a lack of usability and adoption. Design/methodology/approach The authors have selected a few specific online anonymity technologies based on the following criteria: the technology satisfies our full anonymity definition, the technology is currently available for public use and the technology has been academically researched. Findings Few anonymity technologies are available for public use that offer the ability for full online anonymity, and these technologies are difficult for the average computer user to operate. Further research is still needed to help determine what the average user wants to see in an anonymity technology as well as ways to help users integrate the technology into their commodity software (such as Web browsers). Future online anonymity technologies should enable the user to decide when, how and with whom their information is shared if it is shared at all with ease and simplicity. Originality/value The authors identify, explain and analyze publicly available online anonymity technologies in terms of their usability. The authors identified ways as to how online anonymity technology can be improved to increase public adoption. The authors make pertinent recommendations on how the design and development of online anonymity technology can be improved in the future

Robust artifactual independent component classification for BCI practitioners

Objective. EEG artifacts of non-neural origin can be separated from neural signals by independent component analysis (ICA). It is unclear (1) how robustly recently proposed artifact classifiers transfer to novel users, novel paradigms or changed electrode setups, and (2) how artifact cleaning by a machine learning classifier impacts the performance of brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). Approach. Addressing (1), the robustness of different strategies with respect to the transfer between paradigms and electrode setups of a recently proposed classifier is investigated on offline data from 35 users and 3 EEG paradigms, which contain 6303 expert-labeled components from two ICA and preprocessing variants. Addressing (2), the effect of artifact removal on single-trial BCI classification is estimated on BCI trials from 101 users and 3 paradigms. Main results. We show that (1) the proposed artifact classifier generalizes to completely different EEG paradigms. To obtain similar results under massively reduced electrode setups, a proposed novel strategy improves artifact classification. Addressing (2), ICA artifact cleaning has little influence on average BCI performance when analyzed by state-of-the-art BCI methods. When slow motor-related features are exploited, performance varies strongly between individuals, as artifacts may obstruct relevant neural activity or are inadvertently used for BCI control. Significance. Robustness of the proposed strategies can be reproduced by EEG practitioners as the method is made available as an EEGLAB plug-in.EC/FP7/224631/EU/Tools for Brain-Computer Interaction/TOBIBMBF, 01GQ0850, Verbundprojekt: Bernstein Fokus Neurotechnologie - Nichtinvasive Neurotechnologie für Mensch-Maschine Interaktion - Teilprojekte A1, A3, A4, B4, W3, ZentrumDFG, 194657344, EXC 1086: BrainLinks-BrainTool

High-Pressure Phase Transition of the Oxonitridosilicate Chloride Ce4[Si4O3+xN7-x]Cl1-xOx with x = 0.12 and 0.18

The high-pressure behaviour of the oxonitridosilicate chlorides Ce4[Si4O3þxN7-x]Cl1-xOx, x = 0.12 and 0.18, is investigated by in situ powder synchrotron X-ray diffraction. Pressures up to 28 GPa are generated using the diamond-anvil cell technique. A reversible phase transition of first order occurs at pressures between 8 and 10 GPa. Within this pressure range the high- and the low-pressure phases are observed concomitantly. At the phase transition the unit cell volume is reduced by about 5%, and the cubic symmetry (space group P213) is reduced to orthorhombic (space group P212121) following a translationengleiche group-subgroup relationship of index 3. A fit of a third-order Birch-Murnaghan equation of state to the p-V data results in a bulk modulus B0 = 124(5) GPa with its pressure derivative B0 = 5(1) at V0 = 1134.3(4) Å3 for the low-pressure phase and in B0 = 153(10) GPa with B0 = 3.0(6) at V0 = 1071(3) Å3 for the high-pressure phase. The orthorhombic phase shows an anisotropic axial compression with the a axis (which is the shortest axis) being more compressible (k(a) = 0.0143(4) 1/GPa) than the b and c axes (k(b) = 0.0045(2), k(c) = 0.0058(2) 1/GPa). The experimental results confirm an earlier prediction of the pressureinduced instability of isotypic Ce4[Si4O4N6]O, and also show that the bulk modulus was predicted reasonably well

Lady Macbeth narrada : dialogismo e responsabilidade em Shakespeare e Leskov

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Letras, Departamento de Teoria Literária e Literaturas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Literatura, 2014.O objetivo deste trabalho é comparar duas personagens femininas: Lady MacBeth de Shakespeare e Lady MacBeth de Leskov. A partir de uma análise bakhtiniana, pretende-se mapear as diferenças entre essas Ladies. A primeira, do teatro, é uma personagem elevada, cuja ação desmedida é dotada de uma ambição que a levaria a superar sua condição de nobreza. Tudo isso, ligado a um entendimento da tragédia e do herói trágico a partir de princípios aristotélicos, clássicos e de sua releitura pelo dramaturgo inglês. A segunda, da prosa, é uma pessoa comum. Envolvida por uma narrativa cotidiana, sua ambição não-heróica, egoísta e violenta, a conduz a uma satisfação pessoal, afetiva e individualista. Além disso, há uma grande afinidade entre Leskov e Dostoiévski ao criar personagens no mundo literário com características humanas excepcionalmente realistas. Tudo isso, problematizado em consonância com a perspectiva benjaminiana em seu texto “O Narrador” – paradigma do tradutor brasileiro Paulo Bezerra. Tendo em vista que o foco de análise é justamente Leskov, ficam muito evidentes os elementos narrativos, orais e escritos, que respondem e estabelecem um dialogismo com Shakespeare e com a literatura e cultura russas do século XIX. ____________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTThe main purpose of this thesis is to compare two feminine characters: Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and Leskov's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. From a Bakhtin based analysis, the intention is to map out the differences between these two Ladies: the first one, from the theatre, is a distinguished character, whose extreme measures are blinded by the ambition of surpassing her condition of nobility - all of this linked to an understanding of tragedy and the tragic hero based on Aristotelic principals. The other lady is a commoner, written in an everyday narrative in prose. Her personal ambition is non-heroic at the same time that it is individualist and violent, an attitude that provides personal satisfaction. Also, there is great affinity between Leskov and Dostoyevsky in creating fictional characters that have exceptionally realistic human qualities. All these aspects will then be examined from Walter Benjamin's perspective in his text The Storyteller. Having in mind that the focus of this research is Leskov, the narrative, oral and written elements become quite evident because they respond and establish a dialogism with Shakespeare and Russian literature and culture of the XIX century

Considering the Oxygen Effect : Further Development of a Volumetric Model of Tumor Response to Radiation Therapy for Cervical Cancer

Mathematical modeling of tumor response to radiation therapy (RT) has great potential for designing therapy plans that are more personalized, more adaptive, and more reliable for outcome predictions. A preexisting model of tumor response to radiation therapy for cervical cancer has been shown to generate model parameters that correlate strongly with both tumor local control and disease-specific survival. This model is further developed through incorporation of another effect of RT not previously accounted for: the oxygen effect. An easily obtainable form of input data, hemoglobin level, enables simulation of the oxygen effect simultaneously with the other major model effects. For the Local Control (LC) patient group, the changes in the model parameters caused by incorporation of the oxygen effect are found to significantly improve the agreement of those parameters with actual patient data. For the Local Failure (LF) group and the overall patient group, the oxygen effect is incorporated without significant change to the agreement between the model-simulated output parameters and the actual patient data. Also, a strategy is presented for solving the main model equations to obtain analytic expressions for surviving cell fraction and regression volume ratio as functions of time.  M.S

Ultra-high-field imaging reveals increased whole brain connectivity underpins cognitive strategies that attenuate pain

We investigated how the attenuation of pain with cognitive interventions affects brain connectivity using neuroimaging and a whole brain novel analysis approach. While receiving tonic cold pain, 20 healthy participants performed three different pain attenuation strategies during simultaneous collection of functional imaging data at seven tesla. Participants were asked to rate their pain after each trial. We related the trial-by-trial variability of the attenuation performance to the trial-by-trial functional connectivity strength change of brain data. Across all conditions, we found that a higher performance of pain attenuation was predominantly associated with higher functional connectivity. Of note, we observed an association between low pain and high connectivity for regions that belong to brain regions long associated with pain processing, the insular and cingulate cortices. For one of the cognitive strategies (safe place), the performance of pain attenuation was explained by diffusion tensor imaging metrics of increased white matter integrity

Structure and Mechanism of a Metal-Sensing Regulatory RNA

SummaryOrganisms maintain the correct balance of intracellular metals primarily through metal-sensing proteins that control transport and storage of the target ion(s). Here, we reveal the basis of metal sensing and genetic control by a metalloregulatory RNA. Our data demonstrate that a previously uncharacterized orphan riboswitch, renamed the “M-box,” is a divalent metal-sensing RNA involved in Mg2+ homeostasis. A combination of genetic, biochemical, and biophysical techniques demonstrate that Mg2+ induces a compacted tertiary architecture for M-box RNAs that regulates the accessibility of nucleotides involved in genetic control. Molecular details are provided by crystallographic structure determination of a Mg2+-bound M-box RNA. Given the distribution of this RNA element, it may constitute a common mode for bacterial metal ion regulation, and its discovery suggests the possibility of additional RNA-based metal sensors in modern and primordial organisms

A Quantitative Assay for Insulin-expressing Colony-forming Progenitors

The field of pancreatic stem and progenitor cell biology has been hampered by a lack of in vitro functional and quantitative assays that allow for the analysis of the single cell. Analyses of single progenitors are of critical importance because they provide definitive ways to unequivocally demonstrate the lineage potential of individual progenitors. Although methods have been devised to generate "pancreatospheres" in suspension culture from single cells, several limitations exist. First, it is time-consuming to perform single cell deposition for a large number of cells, which in turn commands large volumes of culture media and space. Second, numeration of the resulting pancreatospheres is labor-intensive, especially when the frequency of the pancreatosphere-initiating progenitors is low. Third, the pancreatosphere assay is not an efficient method to allow both the proliferation and differentiation of pancreatic progenitors in the same culture well, restricting the usefulness of the assay