Contract signing, optimism, and advantage

A contract signing protocol lets two parties exchange digital signatures on a pre-agreed text. Optimistic contract signing protocols enable the signers to do so without invoking a trusted third party. However, an adjudicating third party remains available should one or both signers seek timely resolution. We analyze optimistic contract signing protocols using a game-theoretic approach and prove a fundamental impossibility result: in any fair, optimistic, timely protocol, an optimistic player yields an advantage to the opponent. The proof relies on a careful characterization of optimistic play that postpones communication to the third party.     

Deciding branching time properties for asynchronous programs

Asynchronous programming is a paradigm that supports asynchronous function calls in addition to synchronous function calls. Programs in such a setting can be modeled by automata with counters that keep track of the number of pending asynchronous calls for each function, as well as a call stack for synchronous recursive computation. These programs have the restriction that an asynchronous call is processed only when the call stack is empty. The decidability of the control state reachability problem for such systems was recently established. In this paper, we consider the problems of checking other branching time properties for such systems. Specifically we consider the following problems — termination, which asks if there is an infinite (non-terminating) computation exhibited by the system; control state maintainability, which asks if there is a maximal execution of the system, where all the state visited lie in some “good” set; whether the system can be simulated by a given finite state system; and whether the system can simulate a given finite state system. We present decision algorithms for all these problems.     

A 16-bit 250-kHz delta-sigma modulator and decimation filter

This paper describes a delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter (ADC) capable of converting input frequencies up to 250 kHz. It consists of a fifth-order switched-capacitor delta-sigma modulator and a decimation filter. Various design optimizations in the modulator are presented. The decimation filter consists of a comb filter followed by a novel, highly efficient and scalable finite impulse response filter. The ADC was implemented in 0.6-μm CMOS technology. It achieves a dynamic range of 94 db     

Pancreatic lipolysis of some brominated vegetable oils

Pancreatic lipolysis of several commercially used brominated vegetable oils has shown that although hydrolysis proceeds more slowly, these oils are degraded in a similar way to the common vegetable oils.     

Mammary transfer and metabolism in the rat of halogenated fatty acids of halogenated olive oil

To assess possible incorporation of halogenated fatty acids into the neonate via the milk, a 4-day study was carried out in which lactating Wistar rats were orally dosed with either brominated olive oil (BOO) (0.6 g/kg body wt/day) or chlorinated olive oil (COO) (0.4 g/kg body wt/day) for the first 4 days. On days 1–5 inclusive 2 pups per litter were sacrificed and the stomach curd and livers analyzed for halogenated fatty acids by gas liquid chromatography (GLC). On day 5 all dams also were sacrificed and their livers and adipose tissue similarly analyzed. With BOO, brominated fatty acids (bfa) accumulated in both the milk lipids and neonate liver lipids, and appeared to plateau on day 4 at levels of 2% and 5% respectively. In contrast to the BOO in which approximately 100% of the bfa was dibromostearis (DBS), the milk bfa comprised 79% (DBS), 9% dibromopalmitic (DBP) and 12% dibromomyristic (DBM) acids, suggesting maternal metabolism to the shorter chain brominated acids. In the neonate liver lipids the bfa composition was 47% (DBS), 12% (DBP) and 41% (DBM), suggesting either further metabolism in the neonate and/or preferential accumulation of the shorter chain brominated acids. The analysis of maternal tissue indicated very low bfa residues, contrary to previous studies in non-lactating rats. Similar results were obtained with COO.     

Biotransformation of CI Acid Blue 113 and other dyes by Shewanella sp. P6

The isolate P₆, an indigenous Shewanella sp., was able to decolorise 90% of CI Acid Blue 113 in just 30 min of incubation under anoxic conditions. The decolorisation potential of cells was not significantly affected even in the presence of 2% (w/v) sodium chloride and 8% (w/v) sodium sulphate. Mass spectrometric analysis detected the formation of aniline sodium salt, 1,4‐diaminonaphthalene, 5‐amino‐8‐(phenylamino)‐naphthalene‐1‐sulphonic acid sodium salt and 8‐(phenylamino)‐naphthalene‐1‐sulphonic acid sodium salt. Further, cells of P₆ decolorised the raw effluent collected from the equalisation tank of a textile industry wastewater treatment plant. The water‐soluble dyes/intermediates present in the sludge, generated after chemical flocculation of raw effluent, were transformed by P₆ cells within 24 h of incubation under anoxic conditions. Thus, isolate P₆ has a potential application in the biological treatment of liquid and solid waste of textile processing plants because of its efficient decolorisation and transformation properties.