Evaluating differentially private decision tree model over model inversion attack

International Journal of Information Security - Machine learning techniques have been widely used and shown remarkable performance in various fields. Along with the widespread utilization of...     

Variation of antibiotic resistance in Salmonella Enteritidis,Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Listeria monocytogenes after exposure to acid,salt, and cold stress

Bacteria with antibiotic-resistant could seriously threaten to human health, increasing the treatment cost for infections and negatively affecting treatment outcomes. Stress adaptation is one possible mechanism for the acquisition or enhancement of antibiotic resistance in bacteria as a result of cross-protection. In this study, the effects of acid, salt, and cold stress on the antibiotic resistance of Salmonella Enteritidis, Listeria monocytogenes, and Escherichia coli O157:H7 were investigated using the disc diffusion method. For S. Enteritidis, acidic growth conditions increased resistance to ciprofloxacin and erythromycin (p < .05), and addition of 4% NaCl to growth media decreased resistance to chloramphenicol (p < .05). Irrespective of pH and the NaCl concentration of the growth medium, refrigerated E. coli O157:H7 showed increased resistance to amoxycillin, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, streptomycin, and erythromycin (p < .05). Acid-adapted L. monocytogenes showed decreased the resistance to amoxycillin, ampicillin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, gentamicin, streptomycin, and tetracycline (p < .05). In conclusion, prolonged exposure of foodborne pathogens to acid, salt, and cold stress alters their antibiotic resistance. However, the effect of acid, salt, and cold stress on bacterial antibiotic resistance depend on both the bacterial species and the specific antibiotic. Therefore, multiple factors need to be considered for a foodborne antimicrobial resistant risk assessment.     

Capsiate Intake with Exercise Training Additively Reduces Fat Deposition in Mice on a High-Fat Diet,but Not without Exercise Training

While exercise training (ET) is an efficient strategy to manage obesity, it is recommended with a dietary plan to maximize the antiobesity functions owing to a compensational increase in energy intake. Capsiate is a notable bioactive compound for managing obesity owing to its capacity to increase energy expenditure. We aimed to examine whether the antiobesity effects of ET can be further enhanced by capsiate intake (CI) and determine its effects on resting energy expenditure and metabolic molecules. Mice were randomly divided into four groups (n = 8 per group) and fed high-fat diet. Mild-intensity treadmill ET was conducted five times/week; capsiate (10 mg/kg) was orally administered daily. After 8 weeks, resting metabolic rate and metabolic molecules were analyzed. ET with CI additively reduced the abdominal fat rate by 18% and solely upregulated beta-3-adrenoceptors in adipose tissue (p = 0.013) but did not affect the metabolic molecules in skeletal muscles. Surprisingly, CI without ET significantly increased the abdominal fat rate (p = 0.001) and reduced energy expenditure by 9%. Therefore, capsiate could be a candidate compound for maximizing the antiobesity effects of ET by upregulating beta-3-adrenoceptors in adipose tissue, but CI without ET may not be beneficial in managing obesity.     

Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO2 to Ethylene by Molecular Cu‐Complex Immobilized on Graphitized Mesoporous Carbon

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) to hydrocarbons is a challenging task because of the issues in controlling the efficiency and selectivity of the products. Among the various transition metals, copper has attracted attention as it yields more reduced and C2 products even while using mononuclear copper center as catalysts. In addition, it is found that reversible formation of copper nanoparticle acts as the real catalytically active site for the conversion of CO₂ to reduced products. Here, it is demonstrated that the dinuclear molecular copper complex immobilized over graphitized mesoporous carbon can act as catalysts for the conversion of CO₂ to hydrocarbons (methane and ethylene) up to 60%. Interestingly, high selectivity toward C2 product (40% faradaic efficiency) is achieved by a molecular complex based hybrid material from CO₂ in 0.1 m KCl. In addition, the role of local pH, porous structure, and carbon support in limiting the mass transport to achieve the highly reduced products is demonstrated. Although the spectroscopic analysis of the catalysts exhibits molecular nature of the complex after 2 h bulk electrolysis, morphological study reveals that the newly generated copper cluster is the real active site during the catalytic reactions.     

Knowledge-based control and case-based diagnosis based upon empirical knowledge and fuzzy logic for the SBR plant.

Because biological wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) involve a long time-delay and various disturbances, in general, skilled operators manually control the plant based on empirical knowledge. And operators usually diagnose the plant using similar cases experienced in the past. For the effective management of the plant, system automation has to be accomplished based upon operating recipes. This paper introduces automatic control and diagnosis based upon the operator's knowledge. Fuzzy logic was employed to design this knowledge-based controller because fuzzy logic can convert the linguistic information to rules. The controller can manage the influent and external carbon in considering the loading rate. The input of the controller is not the loading rate but the dissolved oxygen (DO) lag-time, which has a strong relation to the loading rate. This approach can replace an expensive sensor, which measures the loading rate and ammonia concentration in the reactor, with a cheaper DO sensor. The proposed controller can assure optimal operation and prevent the over-feeding problem. Case-based diagnosis was achieved by the analysis of profile patterns collected from the past. A new test profile was diagnosed by comparing it with template patterns containing normal and abnormal cases. The proposed control and diagnostic system will guarantee the effective and stable operation of WWTPs.     

High-gain pseudomorphic InGaAs base ballistic hot-electron device

A high-gain ballistic hot-electron device is described. The GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure device, with a 21-mm-thick pseudomorphic In _0.12Ga_0.88As base, had a current gain of 27 at 77 K and 41 at 4.2 K. As characteristically seen in ballistic devices, transfer into the L valley limited the maximum gain. The Γ-L valley separation in the strained In_0.12Ga_0.88As was estimated to be about 380 meV     

W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m InAlAs/InGaAs metamorphic HEMT technology

A W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider with wide bandwidth and low power dissipation is presented using harmonic injection-locking technique. A cascode FET is employed for a self-oscillating second-harmonic mixer which is injection-locked by third-harmonic input to obtain the division order of three. The fabricated frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m GaAs metamorphic HEMT technology shows superior performance such as large bandwidth of 6.1 GHz around 83.1 GHz (7.3%) under small DC power consumption of 12 mW.     

Using classification techniques for informal requirements in the requirements analysis-supporting system

In order to efficiently develop large-scale and complicated software, it is important for system engineers to correctly understand users’ requirements. Most requirements in large-scale projects are collected from various stakeholders located in various regions, and they are generally written in natural language. Therefore, the initial collected requirements must be classified into various topics prior to analysis phases in order to be usable as input in several requirements analysis methods. If this classification process is manually done by analysts, it becomes a time-consuming task. To solve this problem, we propose a new bootstrapping method which can automatically classify requirements sentences into each topic category using only topic words as the representative of the analysts’ views. The proposed method is verified through experiments using two requirements data sets: one written in English and the other in Korean. The significant performances were achieved in the experiments: the 84.28 and 87.91 F1 scores for the English and Korean data sets, respectively. As a result, the proposed method can provide an effective function for an Internet-based requirements analysis-supporting system so as to efficiently gather and analyze requirements from various and distributed stakeholders by using the Internet.     

Diarrhea in young children associated with Escherichia coli non-O157 organisms that produce Shiga-like toxin

The aim of this study was to evaluate the way in which short-term protection declines and is eventually lost in preconditioning and to determine the efficacy of a second preconditioning at various reperfusion intervals. Male rabbits were divided into six groups. Forty-five minutes (sustained) ischemia followed by 120 minutes reperfusion was applied 60, 65, 70, 75, and 80 minutes after a 5 minute preconditioning (groups A, B, C, D, and E) and in a control group (F) after no preconditioning. The infarct to risk ratio (I/R) was 38.3 +/- 3.5% in group A, 46.0 +/- 7.8% in B, 61.6 +/- 9.7% in C, 68.1 +/- 4.2% in D, 64.5 +/- 7.8% in E, and 61.0 +/- 7.7% in F. Group A had a smaller I/R compared with groups C, D, E, and F (p < 0.05). In another series, groups G, H, and I were exposed to two 5-minute preconditioning stimuli, separated, respectively, by 45, 60, and 75 minutes of reperfusion; 10 minutes after the last preconditioning, the animals were exposed to 45-minutes ischemia and 120 minutes reperfusion. Groups A and D (with the smaller and higher I/R ratio) were also incorporated into this protocol in order to compare the effect of the additional preconditioning with the single one. The I/R ratio was 25.4 +/- 8.5% in group G, 22.8 +/- 7.0% in group H, and 14.7 +/- 4.0% in group I (p = NS). Group D showed a higher I/R compared with groups G, A, and H (p < 0.01), and group I had a smaller I/R compared with groups A (p < 0.01) and D (p < 0.001). Cardioprotection after a first preconditioning declines gradually and is eventually lost. An additional preconditioning is always effective, and the longer the interval from the first preconditioning, the more potent is the effect.     

Estimation and comparison of nitrogen loads and attenuation in agricultural catchments of Japan and Korea.

To help in clarifying the relationship between the time lag and attenuation of nitrogen (N) loads generated in agricultural catchments, long-term trends in activities that generate N loads and in environmental N loads were estimated in catchments in Japan and Korea dominated by non-point-source emissions. Our approach used statistical data and geographical information system software to analyze pollutant loads. The method was successful in both countries because of the availability of well-developed statistics, geographical information, and weather and water quality monitoring systems, and the accumulation of research data concerning the generation of N loads and the fate of N in soils. Comparison of environmental loads with the loads observed in river water at the outlet of each catchment revealed that: (1) the effect of changes in the environmental load in a catchment appeared almost immediately in the river water quality in Korea, but did not appear clearly even 10 years later in Japan; and (2) the strength of the attenuation appeared to be much lower in Korea than in Japan. These findings suggest that regional characteristics play important roles in the sensitivity of water quality to load-generating activities.