Anonymous Lightweight Proxy Based Key Agreement for IoT (ALPKA)

Wireless Personal Communications - The Internet of Things (IoT) technologies interconnect a broad range of network devices, differing in terms of size, weight, functionality, and resource...     

Comprehensive change management concepts. Development of a participatory approach

During the last years, many change projects in organizations did not have the planned success. Therefore at first, the causes for these failures and the success factors contributing to organizational change have to be discussed. To get better results, a comprehensive change management concept has been developed and tested in an ongoing research project. By using concepts for an integrated assessment and design of organizations, an approach for analyzing the current situation has been elaborated to identify “lack of integration” in the change initiatives of a company. To realize an integrated overall approach of modernization by harmonizing different methods and concepts, first, one has to prove their relationship to policy and strategy (vertical harmonization). The second step is to take into account the fact that there has to be a logical fit between the single concepts (horizontal harmonization). But even if all elements are logically coherent, that does not mean that the people working in the company also see this coherence. Therefore, in addition to the “logical fit”, one has to examine the “psychological fit”. In the end, a concept for analyzing the status quo in an organization as a result of “objective data” and “subjective data” originated.

Subsequently, instruments for harmonizing different modernizing concepts have been applied. As part of the comprehensive change management concept participatory ergonomic approaches have been used during the project. The present study shows this approach in the case of one company.     

Wide Dynamic Range in Tunable Electrochromic Bragg Stacks from Doped Semiconductor Nanocrystals

Electrochromic properties can be enhanced by constructing photonic architectures, in which the reflectance contributes to optical modulation along with the intrinsic dynamic absorptivity of the material. However, optimization of reflectance is challenging without a rational design approach. Here, electrochemically tunable Bragg reflectors are demonstrated that are tuned to be highly transparent in the “off” state, achieving synergistic dynamic optical modulation of absorption and reflection in the visible and near‐infrared range. These Bragg stacks are composed of alternating doped semiconductor nanocrystal (NC) layers of 5 nm sized oxygen vacancy‐doped WO_3?x and 15 nm sized 0.4 at% Sn:In₂O₃ NCs. Combining judicious NC selection and processing optimization with guidance from optical simulations, optimized Bragg stacks are implemented for electrochromic window applications. NCs with high absorption coefficients are essential for strong transmission modulation, though this characteristic limits the dynamic range of the Bragg reflectance. Optimal reflectance modulation including a highly transparent “off” state is confirmed with in situ reflectance and transmittance measurement. More broadly, ligand‐stripped NCs can enable fabrication of complex device architectures on low‐cost flexible substrates. These results guide the design rules for accessing different types of doped semiconductor NC‐based tunable Bragg stacks, an exemplary photonic structure, over a broad wavelength range.     

Museums and virtual reality: using the CAVE to simulate the past

This paper describes how a group of practitioners and researchers are working across disciplines at Nottingham Trent University in the area of Technical Textiles. It introduces strands of ongoing enquiry centred around the development and application of stretch sensors on the body, focusing on how textile and fashion knowledge are being reflexively revealed in the collaborative development of seamful wearable concepts, and on the tensions between design philosophies as revealed by definitions of purpose. We discuss the current research direction of the Aeolia project, which seeks to exploit the literal gaps found in pattern cutting for fitted stretch garments towards experiential forms and potential interactions. Normative goals of fitness for purpose and seamlessness are interrogated and the potential for more integrated design processes, which may at first appear ‘upside down’, is discussed.     

Selection of Optimal Wavelength Features for Decay Detection in Citrus Fruit Using the ROC Curve and Neural Networks

Early automatic detection of fungal infections in post-harvest citrus fruits is especially important for the citrus industry because only a few infected fruits can spread the infection to a whole batch during operations such as storage or exportation, thus causing great economic losses. Nowadays, this detection is carried out manually by trained workers illuminating the fruit with dangerous ultraviolet lighting. The use of hyperspectral imaging systems makes it possible to advance in the development of systems capable of carrying out this detection process automatically. However, these systems present the disadvantage of generating a huge amount of data, which must be selected in order to achieve a result that is useful to the sector. This work proposes a methodology to select features in multi-class classification problems using the receiver operating characteristic curve, in order to detect rottenness in citrus fruits by means of hyperspectral images. The classifier used is a multilayer perceptron, trained with a new learning algorithm called extreme learning machine. The results are obtained using images of mandarins with the pixels labelled in five different classes: two kinds of sound skin, two kinds of decay and scars. This method yields a reduced set of features and a classification success rate of around 89%.     

Fueling Open‐Source Drug Discovery: 177 Small‐Molecule Leads against Tuberculosis

With the aim of fuelling open‐source, translational, early‐stage drug discovery activities, the results of the recently completed antimycobacterial phenotypic screening campaign against Mycobacterium bovis BCG with hit confirmation in M. tuberculosis H37Rv were made publicly accessible. A set of 177 potent non‐cytotoxic H37Rv hits was identified and will be made available to maximize the potential impact of the compounds toward a chemical genetics/proteomics exercise, while at the same time providing a plethora of potential starting points for new synthetic lead‐generation activities. Two additional drug‐discovery‐relevant datasets are included: a) a drug‐like property analysis reflecting the latest lead‐like guidelines and b) an early lead‐generation package of the most promising hits within the clusters identified.     

Iron-enriched natural zeolite modified carbon paste electrode for H2O2 detection

This work demonstrates that iron-enriched natural zeolitic volcanic tuff (Paglisa deposit, Cluj county, Transilvania, Romania) resulting from a previous use as adsorbent in wastewater treatment can be recycled into effective electrode modifier applied to the electrocatalytic detection of hydrogen peroxide. After physico-chemical characterization of tuff samples using various techniques such as chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, BET analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, the electrochemical response of the iron-enriched zeolites was studied on the basis of solid carbon paste electrodes modified with these samples. The results indicate that iron centers in the zeolite are electroactive and that they act as electrocatalysts in the voltammetric and amperometric detection of H₂O₂. Best performance was achieved in phosphate buffer at pH 7, showing a sensitivity of 0.57 mA M⁻¹ cm⁻², a detection limit down to 60 μM, and a linear domain up to 100 mM H₂O₂.