Ensuring location diversity in privacy-preserving spatio-temporal data publishing

The rise of mobile technologies in the last decade has led to vast amounts of location information generated by individuals. From the knowledge discovery point of view, these data are quite valuable, but the inherent personal information in the data raises privacy concerns. There exists many algorithms in the literature to satisfy the privacy requirements of individuals, by generalizing, perturbing, and suppressing their data. Current techniques that try to ensure a level of indistinguishability between trajectories in a dataset are direct applications of \(k\) -anonymity, thus suffer from the shortcomings of \(k\) -anonymity such as the lack of diversity in sensitive regions. Moreover, these techniques fail to incorporate some common background knowledge, an adversary might have such as the underlying map, the traffic density, and the anonymization algorithm itself. We propose a new privacy metric \(p\) -confidentiality that ensures location diversity by bounding the probability of a user visiting a sensitive location with the \(p\) input parameter. We perform our probabilistic analysis based on the background knowledge of the adversary. Instead of grouping the trajectories, we anonymize the underlying map, that is, we group nodes (points of interest) to create obfuscation areas around sensitive locations. The groups are formed in such a way that the parts of trajectories entering the groups, coupled with the adversary background, do not increase the adversary’s belief in violating the \(p\) -confidentiality. We then use the map anonymization as a model to anonymize the trajectories. We prove that our algorithm is resistant to reverse-engineering attacks when the statistics required for map anonymization is publicly available. We empirically evaluate the performance of our algorithm and show that location diversity can be satisfied effectively.     

Scheduling a single machine with multiple preventive maintenance activities and position-based deteriorations using genetic algorithms

In this paper, we study a single machine scheduling problem with deteriorating processing time of jobs and multiple preventive maintenances which reset deteriorated processing time to the original processing time. In this situation, we consider three kinds of problems whose performance measures are makespan, total completion time, and total weighted completion time. First, we formulate integer programming formulations, and using the formulations, one can find optimal solutions for small problems. Since these problems are known to be NP-hard and the size of real problem is very large, we propose a number of heuristics and design genetic algorithms for the problems. Finally, we conduct some computational experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms.     

Equilibrium beach profiles: erosion and accretion balanced approach

Estimating the magnitude of profile scale factor is currently based on the assumption that beach profiles are in equilibrium condition. However, this assumption cannot be applied to all beach profiles. In this article, a boundary based profile scale factor is proposed that through a normalized coordinate system leads to a unique global profile scale factor. The global profile scale factor helps to determine an initial linear beach profile. The amount of erosion and accretion that causes the initial linear profile to transform to the natural equilibrium beach profile (EBP) can be calculated. Accordingly, the balance between the amount of erosion and accretion will identify a turning point distinguishing the erosion and accretion areas on the profile. This turning point helps to evaluate whether the profile is in equilibrium condition or not. The proposed model was validated through various beach profiles resulting in high degrees of accuracy and reliability.     

Response to thermal exposure of the mechanically alloyed Al–Ti/C powders

Al–TiC_p composites have been extensively studied in recent years not only because of their attributes as wear-resistant structural materials but also on account of their potential as very efficient grain refiners. Al–Ti–C alloys of various compositions have already been commercialized as grain refining master alloys and have long been in use in aluminium foundries world wide. The present work was undertaken to investigate the possibility of manufacturing Al–TiC_p grain refiner master alloy tablets by the mechanical alloying route. Carbon was mechanically alloyed into Al–Ti alloy powder grains via high energy ball milling. The Al–Ti/C powder blend thus obtained was heat treated to promote the precipitation of TiC. Al₄C₃ was the first phase to form inside the powder grains upon thermal exposure. The Al₄C₃ particles which were too small to be identified with the optical microscope until 750 °C, have grown until 850 °C where they have started to react with Al₃Ti to produce TiC. A very fine dispersion of TiC particles was thus generated inside the powder particles while the Al₃Ti phase has almost vanished.     

Socio-Economic Determinants of Student Mobility and Inequality of Access to Higher Education in Italy

Networks and Spatial Economics - This paper introduces a modified version of the Hansen-gravity model as a framework to estimate the accessibility of higher education (HE) institutions in Italy...     

Thixoforming of EN AW-2014 alloy at high solid fraction

EN AW-2014 extruded alloy slugs were thixoformed at 615 °C where the solid fraction is estimated to be 80%. The recrystallization process occurred during heating to the thixoforming temperature, between 550 °C and 600 °C, well above the solidus temperature owing to the pinning of grain boundaries by Al₂Cu precipitates. The equiaxed polygonal grains thus obtained have become increasingly globular upon soaking. Si was enriched in the grain boundaries during soaking while the solid solution matrix was gradually depleted off Cu. The grain boundary composition has moved closer to that of the Al-Cu-Si ternary eutectic with a lower melting point than the binary Al-Cu eutectic, facilitating grain boundary melting. The liquid phase has then penetrated between the grains, forming a more or less continous intergranular network. Microstructural features essential for forming in the semi-solid state were obtained after about 10 min at 615 °C. The subsequent forming process has occurred in the semi-solid state with no evidence of grain deformation. The thixoformed EN AW-2014 part was solutionized at 500 °C for 2 h and was subsequently quenched in water. Artificial ageing at 160 °C has produced hardness values as high as 160 HV after only 8 h. It is concluded that the high strength wrought EN AW-2014 alloy feedstock processed by the RAP route respond to a thixoforming operation in a very favorable fashion.     

Age hardening of EN AW 2014 alloy extruded in the semi-solid state

Response to T6 heat treatment of thixoextruded EN AW 2014 aluminium alloy was investigated in the present work. Extrusion of a 2014 slug heated to a liquid fraction of 15%, takes place in the semi-solid state until the liquid fraction in the final part of the slug is reduced via segregation to a level where semi-solid forming is no longer possible. Hence, the final part of the slug is extruded in the solid-state with a concurrent recrystallization process. This process has produced two distinctly different structures at the front and rear ends and an unexpected hardness profile in T6 temper along the length of the thixoextruded rod. The response to T6 heat treatment of the globular front has been age hardening as usual. The inferior age hardening potential with respect to the hot extruded counterpart is attributed to the grain boundary Al₂Cu phase which has grown too coarse via liquid segregation to be readily solutionized at typical solutionizing temperatures. The rear end of the extrudate on the other hand, has softened upon T6 heat treatment owing to Cu depletion and a fully recrystallized structure.