Modeling data protection and privacy: application and experience with GDPR

Software and Systems Modeling - In Europe and indeed worldwide, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides protection to individuals regarding their personal data in the face of new...     

Whiteness and Urban Planning

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The ability of planning to address America’s urban problems of inequality, crime, housing, education, and segregation is hampered by a relative neglect of Whiteness and its role in shaping urban outcomes. We offer a justification for centering Whiteness within urban planning scholarship and practice that would examine its role shaping and perpetuating regional and racial injustices in the American city. The focus of planners, scholars, and public discourse on the “dysfunctions” of communities of color, notably poverty, high levels of segregation, and isolation, diverts attention from the structural systems that produce and reproduce the advantages of affluent and White neighborhoods. Planners and planning scholars frequently invoke a “legacy of injustice” with regard to concentrated poverty and disadvantage but not in regard to neighborhoods of White affluence. One is segregated and problematized and the other is idealized.

Takeaway for practice: Planners and planning scholars need to understand the role of Whiteness, in particular White affluence, to assess the potential impacts of planning interventions. Doing so will inform a wider range of planning approaches to problems of racial and spatial equity.     

Air-dried capsicum annuum var. acuminatum medium and big: Determination of bioactive constituents,antioxidant activity and carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes inhibition

In the present study the total phenols, flavonoids, carotenoids and capsaicinoids content, the in vitro antioxidant and hypoglycemic activities of extracts of air-dried fruits from two Capsicum annuum cultivars were investigated. A different composition between the two cultivars was evidenced. C. annuum var. acuminatum medium extract presented a major content of phenols, carotenoids, capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin while C. annuum var. acuminatum big extract is characterized by the highest quercetin, luteolin and kaempferol content with 68.0, 87.6 and 29.7 μg/g dried weight, respectively, analyzed by HPLC. Medium pepper showed the highest radical scavenging activity in DPPH assay (IC₅₀ of 85.3 μg/ml) while big pepper have an interesting activity in ABTS assay (IC₅₀ of 16.4 μg/ml) and the highest inhibition of linoleic acid oxidation with an IC₅₀ value of 1.2 μg/ml after 30 min of incubation. A selective inhibitory activity against α-amylase was demonstrated for C. annuum var. acuminatum big lipophilic fraction (IC₅₀ values of 8.7 μg/ml). The obtained results suggest that C. annuum cultivars could be used as valuable flavor with functional properties for foods.     

Distributed optical control plane for dynamic lightpath establishment in translucent optical networks based on reachability graph

In transparent optical networks, physical layer impairments (PLIs) incurred by non-ideal optical transmission media accumulate along an optical path, and the overall effect determines the optical feasibility of the lightpaths. In addition, transparent optical networks suffer from inefficient wavelength utilization, as a connection request may be rejected because of non-availability of a common wavelength on all the links along the chosen route. To increase optical reach, resource utilization, and average call acceptance ratio (and hence revenues), network operators are resort to translucent optical networks. In these networks a limited number of regenerators are placed at a selected set of nodes. In this scenario development of an optical control plane which is aware of PLIs, location and number of regenerators, is of paramount importance for on-demand lightpath provisioning. In this paper, we propose a novel approach of constructing a reachability graph of the physical network considering PLIs and regenerators. If there is no transparent path in the physical network, we route the connections with multiple transparent segments on the reachability graph. We propose efficient mechanisms and corresponding GMPLS protocol extensions for impairment and regenerator aware routing and wavelength assignment (IRA-RWA) in translucent optical networks. The simulation results suggest that our proposed approach together with LSP stitching signaling mechanism is feasible to implement and close to deployment.     

A practical strategy for sEMG-based knee joint moment estimation during gait and its validation in individuals with cerebral palsy

Individuals with cerebral palsy have neurological deficits that may interfere with motor function and lead to abnormal walking patterns. It is important to know the joint moment generated by the patient's muscles during walking in order to assist the suboptimal gait patterns. In this paper, we describe a practical strategy for estimating the internal moment of a knee joint from surface electromyography (sEMG) and knee joint angle measurements. This strategy requires only isokinetic knee flexion and extension tests to obtain a relationship between the sEMG and the knee internal moment, and it does not necessitate comprehensive laboratory calibration, which typically requires a 3-D motion capture system and ground reaction force plates. Four estimation models were considered based on different assumptions about the functions of the relevant muscles during the isokinetic tests and the stance phase of walking. The performance of the four models was evaluated by comparing the estimated moments with the gold standard internal moment calculated from inverse dynamics. The results indicate that an optimal estimation model can be chosen based on the degree of cocontraction. The estimation error of the chosen model is acceptable (normalized root-mean-squared error: 0.15-0.29, R: 0.71-0.93) compared to previous studies (Doorenbosch and Harlaar, 2003; Doorenbosch and Harlaar, 2004; Doorenbosch, Joosten, and Harlaar, 2005), and this strategy provides a simple and effective solution for estimating knee joint moment from sEMG.     

Direct design of a velocity controller and load disturbance estimation for a self-balancing industrial manual manipulator

Self-balancing manual manipulators are devices that countervail the weight of a load that must be manually handled and moved by a human operator. Standard manipulators are made of a framework with an electric motor on the top and a spool connected to the motor shaft through a transmission gear. The load is hung by a handling device connected to a metallic rope wound on the spool. The device considered in this paper, in its current layout, is endowed with a load cell that measures the load weight and is controlled in an open loop. A new layout has been designed, which is not including the weighting load cell and is feedback controlled. The load’s counterbalance and movement are obtained by a velocity closed loop control algorithm designed using a direct design method, the Virtual Reference Feedback Tuning (VRFT). VRFT provides controller parameters tuning in a completely automatic way based on a single I/O batch measurement on the plant. Moreover, the elimination of the load weight transducer causes issues to some handling devices that need weight measurements to attach and detach the load. So, a load mass observer has been designed using a gravitational torque estimator, which is an enhanced version of standard disturbance torque observer for electric motors.     

Class-level Non-Interference

The Information-Flow property of Non-Interference was recently relaxed into Abstract Non-Interference (ANI), a weakened version where attackers can only observe properties of data, rather than their exact value. ANI was originally defined on integers, where a property models the set of numbers satisfying it. The present work proposes an Object-Oriented, Java-based formulation of an instance of ANI where data take the form of objects, and the observed property comes to be their type. The execution of a program is taken to be the invocation of some method by an external user: a class is secure if, for all its (non-private) methods, the type of their low-security data after the execution does not depend on the initial type of its high-security data (i.e., there are no illicit flows). The relation to ANI theory (in its abstract version) can be seen in the representation of abstract domains in terms of class hierarchies: an upper closure operator map an object into the smallest class it is an instance of. An analyzer for a non-trivial subset of Java is illustrated. A sketch of a soundness proof is provided: a program is never misclassified as secure, i.e., it is rejected whenever the absence of illicit ows cannot be guaranteed.     

The Role of CNTs in Promoting Hybrid Filler Networking and Synergism with Carbon Black in the Mechanical Behavior of Filled Polyisoprene

The filler networking process promoted by multiwalled CNTs is studied in neat and CB‐filled poly(1,4‐cis‐isoprene) matrices. TEM analysis, tensile, dynamic‐mechanical, and electrical measurements reveal that the CNTs form a filler network at low concentration in neat PI and a continuous hybrid filler network at a lower CNT concentration in the presence of CB, with a remarkable increase of the nonlinear dynamic‐mechanical behavior of the nanocomposites at low deformation. A synergistic effect between CB and CNTs is demonstrated. The addition of CNTs to the CB‐filled PI matrix leads to initial modulus values much larger than those calculated by simple addition of the two initial moduli of the composites containing only CB and only CNTs, respectively.