A distributed requirements management framework for legal compliance and accountability

Increasingly, new regulations are governing organizations and their information systems. Individuals responsible for ensuring legal compliance and accountability currently lack sufficient guidance and support to manage their legal obligations within relevant information systems. While software controls provide assurances that business processes adhere to specific requirements, such as those derived from government regulations, there is little support to manage these requirements and their relationships to various policies and regulations. We propose a requirements management framework that enables executives, business managers, software developers and auditors to distribute legal obligations across business units and/or personnel with different roles and technical capabilities. This framework improves accountability by integrating traceability throughout the policy and requirements lifecycle. We illustrate the framework within the context of a concrete healthcare scenario in which obligations incurred from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are delegated and refined into software requirements. Additionally, we show how auditing mechanisms can be integrated into the framework and how auditors can certify that specific chains of delegation and refinement decisions comply with government regulations.     

Asymptotic Adaptive Neural Network Tracking Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Robot Formations

In this paper, asymptotically stable control laws are developed for leader–follower based formation control using backstepping in order to accommodate the dynamics of the robots and the formation. First, a kinematic controller is developed around control strategies for single mobile robots and the idea of virtual leaders. The virtual leader is replaced with a physical mobile robot leader, and an auxiliary velocity control law is developed in order to prove the global asymptotic stability of the followers which in turn allows the local asymptotic stability of the entire formation. A novel approach is taken in the development of the dynamical controller such that the torque control inputs for the follower robots include the dynamics of the follower robot as well as the dynamics of its leader, and two cases are considered—the case when the robot dynamics are known and the case when they are unknown. In the first case, a robust adaptive control term is utilized to account for unmodeled dynamics. For the latter, a robust adaptive term is augmented with a NN control law to achieve asymptotic tracking performance in contrast with most NN controllers where a bounded tracking error result is shown. Additionally, the NN approximation error is assumed to be a function of tracking errors instead of a constant upper bound, which is commonly found in the literature. The stability of the follower robots as well as the entire formation is demonstrated in each case using Lyapunov methods and numerical results are provided.     

Linear Programming Models for the User and System Optimal Dynamic Network Design Problem: Formulations,Comparisons and Extensions

In this paper we formulate a network design model in which the traffic flows satisfy dynamic user equilibrium conditions for a single destination. The model presented here incorporates the Cell Transmission Model (CTM); a traffic flow model capable of capturing shockwaves and link spillovers. Comparisons are made between the properties of the Dynamic User equilibrium Network Design Problem (DUE NDP) and an existing Dynamic System Optimal (DSO) NDP formulation. Both network design models have different objective functions with similar constraint sets which are linear and convex. Numerical demonstrations are made on multiple networks to demonstrate the efficacy of the model and demonstrate important differences between the DUE and DSO NDP approaches. In addition, the flexibility of the approach is demonstrated by extending the formulation to account for demand uncertainty. This is formulated as a stochastic programming problem and initial test results are demonstrated on test networks. It is observed that not accounting for demand uncertainty explicitly, provides sub-optimal solution to the DUE NDP problem.     

Synthetic and Crystallographic Insight into Exploiting sp2 Hybridization in the Development of α-l-Fucosidase Inhibitors

The sugar fucose plays a myriad of roles in biological recognition. Enzymes hydrolyzing fucose from glycoconjugates, α-l -fucosidases, are important targets for inhibitor and probe development. Here we describe the synthesis and evaluation of novel α-l -fucosidase inhibitors, with X-ray crystallographic analysis using an α-l -fucosidase from Bacteroides thetaiotamicron helping to lay a foundation for future development of inhibitors for this important enzyme class.     

Determination of 3‐D Alumina Grain Orientation,Size, Shape,and Growth Kinetics from 2‐D Data in Nextel™ 610 Fibers

Nextel^? 610 alumina fibers were heat‐treated at 1100°C–1500°C for 1–100 h in air. Grain size distributions (GSDs) and grain orientation distributions (ODs) with respect to the fiber axis were characterized by analysis of TEM images from longitudinal fiber sections. The 2‐D GSDs and ODs were characterized as ellipses. 3‐D GSDs and ODs were calculated by fitting distributions of oriented oblate ellipsoids to 2‐D GSDs and ODs formed by ellipsoid–section‐plane intersections. The standard deviations (SDs) of log‐normal GSDs consistently increased with grain size, which is not diagnostic of normal grain growth. The grain aspect ratio (α) and the tendency of the short grain axis to orient perpendicular to the fiber axis also increased with grain size, resulting in more textured fibers at larger grain sizes. Average 3‐D grain sizes were larger than 2‐D sizes for GSDs with small SDs, but smaller for GSDs with large SDs because of under sampling of small grains. 3‐D grain growth kinetics had the same 815 kJ/mol activation energy as that found by 2‐D analysis, but the grain growth exponent m of 6.0 was larger and the pre‐exponential factor much smaller. Expressions for 3‐D log‐normal GSDs as a function of heat treatment temperature and time were determined. α‐distributions and ODs were determined as a function of grain size. Methods for determining 3‐D GSDs are discussed.     

Near‐Infrared Intraoperative Chemiluminescence Imaging

Intraoperative imaging technologies recently entered the operating room, and their implementation is revolutionizing how physicians plan, monitor, and perform surgical interventions. In this work, we present a novel surgical imaging reporter system: intraoperative chemiluminescence imaging (ICI). To this end, we have leveraged the ability of a chemiluminescent metal complex to generate near‐infrared light upon exposure to an aqueous solution of Ce⁴⁺ in the presence of reducing tissue or blood components. An optical camera spatially resolves the resulting photon flux. We describe the construction and application of a prototype imaging setup, which achieves a detection limit as low as 6.9 pmol cm^?2 of the transition‐metal‐based ICI agent. As a proof of concept, we use ICI for the in vivo detection of our transition metal tracer following both systemic and subdermal injections. The very high signal‐to‐noise ratios make ICI an interesting candidate for the development of new intraoperative imaging technologies.     

Relationship Between Structure and Coordination Strength of N and N,O-Hybrid Donor Ligands with Trivalent Lanthanides

ABSTRACT

To effectively separate lanthanides (Ln(III)) from actinides (An(III)), symmetrical 2,2′-bipyridyl (Bpy), 1,10-phenanthroline (Phen), and unsymmetrical N-methyl-N-tolyl-1,10-phenanthroline-2-carboxamide (MeTol-PTA) were investigated. According to the crystal structures and EXAFS experiments, the decreasing ionic radius from light to heavy Ln led to decreases in the Ln–N (Bpy) and Ln–N (Phen) distances, while log β simply increased due to the electrostatic interaction and the order of Ln–O (MeTol-PTA) < Ln–N (Bpy, Phen) < Ln–N (MeTol-PTA) was obtained. This indicated that the bulky phenanthroline moiety of MeTol-PTA may not allow N (MeTol-PTA) to come close to Ln. Consequently, the log β of MeTol-PTA exhibited a local maximum (around Nd).     

Comparative Assay of Antioxidant Packages for Dimer of Estolide Esters

A series of 26 different antioxidants and commercial antioxidant packages designed for petroleum‐based materials, containing both natural and synthetic‐based materials, were evaluated with dimeric coconut‐oleic estolide 2‐ethylhexyl ester (2‐EH), a bio‐based material. The different antioxidants were categorized into different classes of phenolic, aminic, and blended/others materials. The oxidation onset temperatures (OT) using non‐isothermal pressurized differential scanning calorimetry (PDSC) were measured and recorded under previously reported standard conditions. The aminic series gave the best resistance to oxidation as defined by the PDSC method with OT of 246.6 and 244.7 °C for the best two performers, which was a 38 °C improvement over the uninhibited or unformulated dimer estolide material. The phenolic series, containing most of the naturally occurring antioxidants, was the least successful formulation package for the dimer estolide. The blended/other materials, which were specifically designed for petroleum‐based lubricants, did not have the best OT, since the estolides and other bio‐based materials interact differently than their petroleum counterparts. A number of potential antioxidants have been identified as useful additives for the estolides esters. The OT of the estolide and formulated materials correlated well with other bio‐based materials such as biodiesel.