An analysis of BioHashing and its variants

As a result of the growing demand for accurate and reliable personal authentication, biometric recognition, a substitute for or complement to existing authentication technologies, has attracted considerable attention. It has recently been reported that, along with its variants, BioHashing, a new technique that combines biometric features and a tokenized (pseudo-) random number (TRN), has achieved perfect accuracy, having zero equal error rates (EER) for faces, fingerprints and palmprints. There are, however, anomalies in this approach. These are identified in this paper, in which we systematically analyze the details of the approach and conclude that the claim of having achieved a zero EER is based upon an impractical hidden assumption. We simulate the claimants’ experiments and find that it is not possible to achieve their reported performance without the hidden assumption and that, indeed, the results are worse than when using the biometric alone.     

Corrosion of tin in aqueous solutions of mono-, Di- and trichloroacetic acids

The corrosion behaviour of tin in stagnant mono-, di- and trichloroacetic acids solutions in the pH range 1–6 and at concentrations 4.0 to 5 × 10^?4 M was investigated. The results indicate behaviour that is generally the same but there is some dependence on the acid concentration and the pH value. In 4.0 to 10^?2 M solutions, the corrosion rate (W) increased with increasing acid concentration and decreasing pH value from 1 to 4 as follows: log W=a+b log C, where b=0.70, 0.42 and 0.35 for tri-, di- and mono-chloroacetic acids respectively. At high concentrations 4.0 to 10^?2 M and in the pH range 1–6, the steady state corrosion potential shifted in the negative direction with increase of acid concentration accompanied by an increase in the corrosion rate, indicating that the corrosion process becomes anodically controlled by the complexing of Sn²⁺ ions with organic acid anions and that the order of aggressiveness is mono-<di-<trichloroacetic acids. In dilute solutions (10^?2 to 5.10^?4 M) in the pH range 1–6 the steady state potential shifted in the noble direction with increase of acid concentration (accompanied by a remarkable decrease in the corrosion rate). Corrosion inhibition in dilute solutions was attributed to film formation on the surface of tin which may result from the hydrolysis of tin species.     

Absence of human herpesvirus 8 and Epstein-Barr virus genome sequences in cutaneous epithelial neoplasms arising in immunosuppressed organ-transplant patients

Recent studies have implicated herpesvirus 8 and Epstein-Barr virus in the development of cutaneous malignancies in immunosuppressed patients. In order to examine the strength of this association, we examined 37 malignant, pre-malignant and benign cutaneous epithelial neoplasms removed from immunosuppressed organ recipients for the presence of human herpesvirus 8 and Epstein-Barr viral genome sequences using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and in situ hybridization. We examined 2 actinic keratoses, 1 benign keratosis, 11 invasive squamous cell carcinomas, 17 squamous cell carcinomas in situ and 6 basal cell carcinomas. We also examined 4 basal cell carcinomas, 1 invasive squamous cell carcinoma and 3 squamous cell carcinomas in immunocompetent hosts. In contrast to findings reported by other investigators, we were unable to detect viral genome sequences in any of the biopsies examined. Our findings suggest that human herpesvirus 8 and Epstein-Barr virus likely do not play an etiologic role in cutaneous epithelial oncogenesis in immunocompromised patients.     

On selecting a low-order model using the dominant mode concept

A technique for selecting a low-order system to approximate a high-order model has been suggested by Davison [2]. A critical component in this technique is the criterion used to select the most appropriate order and modes for the low-order approximation. Criteria have been discussed and analyzed by Mahapatra [5], [6], Rao, Lamba, and Rao [7], and Elrazaz and Sinha [3]. In this note we overcome deficiencies in the criteria that have been proposed and we introduce a new criterion which is rigorously justified. The criterion we suggest is also applicable when eigenvalues of the system are nonreal.     

Changes in fatty acid and essential oil composition of sage (Salvia officinalis L.) leaves under NaCl stress

Fatty acids and essential oils from hydroponically cultivated Salvia officinalis leaves were analyzed by GC and GC–MS. Four different levels of NaCl (25, 50, 75 and 100 mM) were applied. The first results showed that salt treatment reduced significantly the plant growth by 61% and the total fatty acids (TFA) content by 32% at 100 mM NaCl. Alpha-linolenic, gadoleic, palmitic and oleic acids were the major fatty acids. Moreover, the polyunsaturated fatty acids decreased, while the monounsaturated ones increased with respect to increasing salinity. Regarding the essential oil composition, the main compounds were α-and β-thujone, 1,8-cineole, camphor, α-humulene, viridiflorol and manool at all salt treatments. The yield had a maximum increase at 75 mM NaCl. Hence, sage can be considered as moderately salt sensitive.     

Application of high‐resolution NVD differencing schemes to the FTn finite volume method for radiative heat transfer

In this work, the STEP scheme and several schemes based on the normalized variable diagram (NVD), such as MINMOD, GAMMA, CLAM, NOTABLE, MUSCL, CUBISTA, SMART, WACEB, and VANOS schemes, are evaluated for solving the radiative transfer equation. Two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional rectangular enclosures containing transparent, emitting–absorbing, emitting–absorbing–scattering, or nonhomogeneous participating media are investigated using the modified FTn finite volume method. Although the NVD schemes are much more accurate than the STEP scheme, but they have more time‐consuming and require more iterations. Moreover, most of them often necessitate underrelaxation to ensure convergence. Results show that the MINMOD and GAMMA schemes are still much less accurate than other NVD schemes, but they converge the fastest of the NVD schemes, and do not require underrelaxation. Although the VANOS, WACEB, and SMART schemes give more accurate solutions, they are not competitive with other NVD schemes. However, the CLAM, NOTABLE, and CUBISTA schemes are relatively fast and accurate.     

A novel multi-model neuro-fuzzy-based MPPT for three-phase grid-connected photovoltaic system

This paper presents a novel methodology for Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) of a grid-connected 20 kW photovoltaic (PV) system using neuro-fuzzy network. The proposed method predicts the reference PV voltage guarantying optimal power transfer between the PV generator and the main utility grid. The neuro-fuzzy network is composed of a fuzzy rule-based classifier and three multi-layered feed forwarded Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Inputs of the network (irradiance and temperature) are classified before they are fed into the appropriated ANN for either training or estimation process while the output is the reference voltage. The main advantage of the proposed methodology, comparing to a conventional single neural network-based approach, is the distinct generalization ability regarding to the nonlinear and dynamic behavior of a PV generator. In fact, the neuro-fuzzy network is a neural network based multi-model machine learning that defines a set of local models emulating the complex and nonlinear behavior of a PV generator under a wide range of operating conditions. Simulation results under several rapid irradiance variations proved that the proposed MPPT method fulfilled the highest efficiency comparing to a conventional single neural network and the Perturb and Observe (P&O) algorithm dispositive.