Short communication: Consumer evaluation of milk high in conjugated linoleic acid

A consumer evaluation was undertaken to determine whether there were differences in the acceptability of milk from cows fed a control or a fish oil diet. The two treatments included a control diet of a 50:50 ratio of forage-to-concentrate and fish oil added to the control diet with 2% (on dry matter basis) added fat from menhaden fish oil. Milk from cows fed the control or fish oil diet contained 3.31 and 2.58% fat and 0.56 and 2.30 g of total conjugated linoleic acid/100 g of fatty acids, respectively. Consumer evaluation of control and fish oil milks found no difference in acceptability.     

Synthesis of nearly monodisperse embedded nanoparticles by separating nucleation and growth in ion implantation

We investigate the formation of nanoparticles of Au in SiO(2) by multiple ion implantation steps and intermediate anneals to isolate nucleation and growth, thereby producing a narrow particle size distribution. We discuss the effects of varying the initial nucleation dose and the growth temperature and establish guidelines for synthesizing nanoparticles with improved size uniformity. By this method, we have obtained a standard deviation of 16% on an average diameter of 1.68 nm, compared to 28% when no attempt is made to isolate nucleation and growth.     

A methodological review on attack and defense strategies in cyber warfare

Cyberspace is an integration of cyber physical system components that integrates computation, networking, physical processes, embedded computers and network monitors which uses feedback loops for controlling the processes where the computations are affected by processes and vice versa. More general, cyber physical systems include all equipments operated on preprogrammed instructions ranging from simple electronic devices to the ultra-modern warfare equipments along with life saving devices. Active cyber-attacks can cause cyber warfare situations by disrupting an entire community of people, which in turn raises an emergency situation to the nation. Thus, cyber warfare is a major threat to the nation at large. In this paper, we analyze the various aspects of cyber warfare situations and a survey on ongoing attacks, defense and cyber forensics strategies in that field. Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging computing area which enables Machine to Machine communication in cyber physical systems. An attack on IoT causes major issues to the security on the devices and thus, the various threats and attacks on IoT are analyzed here. Overall monitoring and data acquisition in cyber physical systems is done by Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems and are mainly targeted by the attackers in order to leave the cyberspace applications not functioning. Therefore, the various threats, attacks and research issues pertaining to the cyberspace are surveyed in this paper along with a few research issues and challenges that are to be solved in the area of cyber warfare.

     

Structural variations in layered alkaline earth metal cyclohexyl phosphonates

Two series of alkaline earth metal cyclohexyl phosphonates, M(C₆H₁₁PO₃H)₂(H₂O) (M = Ca, Sr and Ba) (1–3) and M(C₆H₁₁PO₃)(H₂O) (M = Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba) (4–7) have been synthesized under mild reaction conditions. All new compounds have been characterized using elemental analysis, IR, TGA and powder X-ray diffraction techniques. The molecular structure of compound 2 determined using single crystal X-ray diffraction technique reveals a layered polymeric structure.     

EEG Based Biometric Framework for Automatic Identity Verification

The energy of brain potentials evoked during processing of visual stimuli is considered as a new biometric. In particular, we propose several advances in the feature extraction and classification stages. This is achieved by performing spatial data/sensor fusion, whereby the component relevance is investigated by selecting maximum informative (EEG) electrodes (channels) selected by Davies–Bouldin index. For convenience and ease of cognitive processing, in the experiments, simple black and white drawings of common objects are used as visual stimuli. In the classification stage, the Elman neural network is employed to classify the generated EEG energy features. Simulations are conducted by using the hold-out classification strategy on an ensemble of 1,600 raw EEG signals, and 35 maximum informative channels achieved the maximum recognition rate of 98.56 ± 1.87%. Overall, this study indicates the enormous potential of the EEG biometrics, especially due to its robustness against fraud.

Inhibition of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis beta-ketoacyl ACP synthase by isoniazid

Although isoniazid (isonicotinic acid hydrazide, INH) is widely used for the treatment of tuberculosis, its molecular target has remained elusive. In response to INH treatment, saturated hexacosanoic acid (C26:0) accumulated on a 12-kilodalton acyl carrier protein (AcpM) that normally carried mycolic acid precursors as long as C50. A protein species purified from INH-treated Mycobacterium tuberculosis was shown to consist of a covalent complex of INH, AcpM, and a beta-ketoacyl acyl carrier protein synthase, KasA. Amino acid-altering mutations in the KasA protein were identified in INH-resistant patient isolates that lacked other mutations associated with resistance to this drug.     

Modelling the microstructural evolution during hot compression of low carbon steel

Compression tests have been performed on low carbon cylindrical specimens in the temperature range of 900–1100°C in a thermomechanical simulator at a strain rate of 10 s^?1. True stress/true strain and load-displacement curves have been characterised over a strain of 0 to 0.8 at above temperatures. The specimens were helium quenched after an incremental true strain of 0.2 for microstructural study. From the experimental data, flow stress of the material at high temperatures has been determined as a function of Zener-Hollomon parameter. The flow stress equation was employed in a coupled finite element flow formulation model to compute the load for various incremental displacements. The predicted results of load-displacement and change in specimen geometry during compression showed good agreement with the measured values. The predicted rise in temperature due to deformation was of the order of 52 to 34°C in the temperature range of 900 to 1100°C at a strain rate of 10 s^?1. The prior austenite grain size has been measured in the specimen compressed up to a strain of 0.6 at 1100°C and compared with the predicted austenite grain size employing the microstructural model. Metallographic study showed an equiaxed recrystallized grains network in most of the region at the center of the specimen with average grain size of 43 μm. A coarse deformed grain structure with few recrystallized grains at the intersection boundary of austenite grains was observed at the top surface and bulge surface with an average grain size of 74 and 84 μm, respectively. The model predicted the evidence of fully dynamically recrystallised grains at the center of the specimen with a grain size of 42 μm. The predicted grain size at the top and bulge surface has been calculated as 90 and 106 μm, respectively.     

Comparison of semiconductor transport models using a Monte Carloconsistency test

This paper proposes a scheme to compare different transport models which are used to simulate submicron semiconductor devices. The procedure requires self-consistent Monte Carlo simulation data for a particular test device. We have compared four different hydrodynamic transport models which have been proposed recently. All four sets of hydrodynamic equations can be cast into a single form by selecting appropriate models for various transport parameters. The advantage is that we can use the same discretized set of equations to implement different transport models. We have also compared the results obtained from the Monte Carlo consistency test with those obtained by the hydrodynamic equation solver. The consistency test has been used to highlight the merits and demerits of the transport models on a common platform     

Mentoring object-oriented projects

In mentoring, an experienced person (the mentor) undertakes to guide a less experienced person (the “mentee”) in the same or similar field. Mentoring can effectively bring an organization up to speed with new technology. What loosely distinguishes mentoring from training is that the latter is something often associated with a classroom. With mentoring, the learning happens on the job: a mentor educates by continuously hand-holding the mentee on the latter's tasks. Of course, in any real situation the education process must involve a judicious and inseparable mix of training and mentoring, with the same person often performing both roles. You can apply mentoring to people in your organization or even in a customer organization; the article focuses on the former. Mentors are particularly crucial for an organization learning object orientation. The author presents lessons learned from his experiences as a mentor on object oriented application development projects. He attempts to generalize his observations and present them as succinct, shop-usable advice, not just for the mentor but for the mentee as well