777 research outputs found
Alas
No full textWe are pleased to present the English translation of a short story written in Balochi, together with an introduction to the life and work of the author. We also include the Balochi text of the story in Latin and Arabic script. It is our hope that this story will be a wake-up call to many who want to see change in Balochistan, but are reluctant to sacrifice their own comfort to help bring about that change.Taj Baloch and Carina Jahani have translated a short story written by Azgar Lal in Balochi to EnglishThe Balochi Language Projec
"Author Meets Critics: Predrag Cicovacki, Author of Gandhi's Footprints, Meets Critics Sanjay Lal and Carlo Filice"
No full textTwo critics respond to Predrag Cicovacki’s book, Gandi’s Footprints. Cicovacki opens the discussion by presenting his motivations for exploring a paradox, that Gandhi’s work is widely revered but not widely emulated. Cicovacki explores a resolution to the paradox by suggesting how Gandhi’s promising visions may be followed without being imitated, especially Gandhi’s insight that we must seek spiritual grounding for life in a materialistic world. Critic Sanjay Lal affirms Cicovacki’s insight but suggests that precisely because Gandhi’s aspirations for spiritual life were profoundly transformative we should take care not to dilute them into our conventional wisdoms. Critic Carlo Filice asks how Gandhi’s commitment to unified reality could be more clearly articulated once a distinction is drawn between spirit and matter, also how Gandhi’s nonviolence could manage to embrace important exceptions. In reply to critics, Cicovacki proposes an approach to Gandhi informed by the insights of Tagore
Ascending the Nonviolence Continuum: Sanjay Lal, Author of \u3cem\u3eViolence, Nonviolence, and Moral Worth, \u3c/em\u3eMeets Critics
No full textIn this author-meets-critics discussion, Sanjay Lal presents the main ideas of his book Violence, Nonviolence, and Moral Worth, arguing that nonviolence meets violence along a continuum where there are degrees of greater and lesser examples, including a wide range of examples that combine both tendencies. Lal defines nonviolence in terms of three components that emphasize attitudes over actions: (1) a willingness to not harm others, (2) wanting to facilitate the well-being of others, (3) and not sacrificing one\u27s own moral worth. Three critics share their praises and concerns: Predrag Cicovacki challenges Lal to be more specific on the definition of moral worth, on the relationship between violence and nonviolence, and on the account that he gives for value theory and value conflict. Jennifer Kling asks if beliefs can serve as pre-existing grounds for action, if reconceptualizations of pop culture are bound to any limits, and if there are good reasons for assuming that all people are approachable. Danielle Poe asks what it means to reconceptualize popular culture as an approachable resource of nonviolent insight. Answering these questions, Lal reflects on what it means to be inspired by Gandhi’s example
Alas
No full textWe are pleased to present the English translation of a short story written in Balochi, together with an introduction to the life and work of the author. We also include the Balochi text of the story in Latin and Arabic script. It is our hope that this story will be a wake-up call to many who want to see change in Balochistan, but are reluctant to sacrifice their own comfort to help bring about that change
Internet-of-Forensic (IoF): A blockchain based digital forensics framework for IoT applications
No full textDigital forensic in Internet-of-Thing (IoT) paradigm is critical due to its heterogeneity and lack of transparency of evidence processing. Moreover, cross-border legalization makes a hindrance in such process pertaining to the cloud forensic issues. This urges a forensic framework for IoT which provides distributed computing, decentralization, and transparency of forensic investigation of digital evidences in cross-border perspectives. To this end, we propose a framework for IoT forensics that addresses the above mentioned issues. The proposed solution called Internet-of-Forensics (IoF) considers a blockchain tailored IoT framework for digital forensics. It provides a transparent view of the investigation process that involves all the stakeholders (e.g., heterogeneous devices, and cloud service providers) in a single framework. It uses blockchain-based case chain to deal with the investigation process including chain-of-custody and evidence chain. Consensus is used for consortium to solve the problems of cross-border legalization. This is also beneficial for a transparent and ease of forensic reference. The programmable lattice-based cryptographic primitives produce reduced complexities. It shows benefits for power-aware devices and puts an add-on to the novelty of the presented idea. IoF is generic; hence, it can be used by autonomous security operation centers, cyber-forensic investigators and manually initiated evidences under chain-of-custody for man-made crimes. Security services are assured as required by the framework. IoF is experimented and compared with the other state-of-the-art frameworks. The outcomes and analysis prove the efficiency of IoF concerning complexity, time consumption, memory and CPU utilization, gas consumption, and energy analysis
Where to Meet a Driver Privately: Recommending Pick-Up Locations for Ride-Hailing Services
No full textRide-Hailing Service (RHS) has motivated the rise of innovative transportation services. It enables riders to hail a cab or private vehicle at the roadside by sending a ride request to the Ride-Hailing Service Provider (RHSP). Such a request collects rider’s real-time locations, which incur serious privacy concerns for riders. While there are many location privacy-preserving mechanisms in the literature, few of them consider mobility patterns or location semantics in RHS. In this work, we propose a pick-up location recommendation scheme with location indistinguishability and semantic indistinguishability for RHS. Specifically, we give formal definitions of location indistinguishability and semantic indistinguishability. We model the rider mobility as a time-dependent first-order Markov chain and generates a rider’s mobility profile. Next, it calculates the geographic similarity between riders by using the Mallows distance and classifies them into different geographic groups. To comprehend the semantics of a location, it extracts such information through user-generated content from two popular social networks and obtains the semantic representations of locations. Cosine similarity and unified hypergraph are used to compute the semantic similarities between locations. Finally, it outputs a set of recommended pick-up locations. To evaluate the performance, we build our mobility model over the real-world dataset GeoLife, analyze the computational costs of a rider, show the utility, and implement it on an Android smartphone. The experimental results show that it costs less than 0.12 ms to recommend 10 pick-up locations within 500 m of walking distance.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Cyber Securit
Comparison of the limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) and recombinant factor C (rFC) endotoxin bioassays: characterization of aerosols and settled dust on a sheep farm
No full text2011 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.The goals of this study are: 1) To optimize an extraction protocol for bulk sheep dust analysis by rFC; 2) To compare the traditional chromogenic LAL to the newer fluorometric rFC assay; 3) To compare the effects of the two most widely used extraction media, pyrogen-free water (PFW) and pyrogen-free water with 0.05% Tween 20 (PFW-Tween 20), on the assay outcomes; and 4) To characterize endotoxin exposure in a sheep farm environment. Settled and airborne dust samples were collected from a sheep farm for analysis. Settled dust was analyzed with endpoint fluorogenic rFC and kinetic chromogenic LAL in two different laboratories. A total of 34 stationary airborne dust samples (32 matched) were collected with Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) inhalable dust samplers, using polyvinyl chloride (PVC) filters. Airborne samples were analyzed with endpoint fluorogenic rFC and endpoint chromogenic LAL in the same laboratory. The results of the bulk dust analysis showed a significant difference in polystyrene (PS) tubes and polypropylene (PP) tubes used for extraction indicating that PS tubes yielded higher endotoxin levels (t = 3.82, p = 0.000). No difference in endotoxin levels was found for centrifugation and spike recovery was closest to 100% for extraction with PFW. The results of the airborne dust study showed a strong positive correlation between the rFC and LAL assays with PFW-Tween 20 extraction. All samples extracted in PFW-Tween 20 had a higher endotoxin recovery compared with those extracted in PFW for both the rFC and LAL assays
A comparative analysis between the rFC and LAL endotoxin assays for agricultural air samples
No full text2016 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Agricultural workers experience increased exposure to inhalable dust and endotoxins, which make up the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria species. Endotoxin has specifically been linked to an increased degree of pro-inflammatory symptoms from inhaled dust, leading to a variety of lung diseases. Because there is no standardized method of collection or analysis of endotoxin, there are paramount gaps in the knowledge of how best to collect and analyze samples. The aims of this study were to: (1) assess the recovery from PVC filters spiked with known endotoxin concentrations; and (2) compare two different biological endotoxin assay kits: Lonza rFC and Associates of Cape Cod Pyrochrome Chromogenic, in order to detect any significant variation in measured endotoxin concentrations and potentially establish a conversion factor for interstudy comparison purposes. The LAL assay uses a component found in the blood of horseshoe crabs in order to detect and quantify endotoxin concentrations. This process poses some concern with variability, as the reactivity of lysate with endotoxin can vary greatly between individual horseshoe crabs. The newer rFC assay offers an additional option for endotoxin analysis that does not require the use of horseshoe crabs. Because all of the materials are produced in a laboratory, the consistency between kits is much higher. In Aim 1, PVC filters in replicates of five were liquid-spiked with 5 levels of known amounts of endotoxin. To simulate effects of sampling and handling, each filter was then desiccated for 24 hours and loaded into SKC Button Aerosol Samplers where air was pulled through them for 4 hours at a flowrate of 4 L/min to mimic field sampling conditions. Samples were then frozen at -80ºC, thawed, and extracted. Each sample was analyzed for endotoxins using the rFC assay. For Aim 2, a combination of personal, area, and field blanks were collected from two Colorado dairy farms from 2013-2014 in conjunction with a larger study for a total sample size of n=31. Samples were desiccated for 24 hours, frozen at -80ºC, thawed, and extracted. Each sample was then analyzed using the rFC and LAL assay and the results were compared. Using the rFC assay, measurements for endotoxin concentrations were on average several magnitudes lower than the anticipated concentration. Spike recoveries ranged from 1-8%. It is likely that the hydrophobic properties of the PVC filters did not allow complete absorption of the liquid spikes, but rather evaporated into the air. For aim 2, there was no statistical difference found between the rFC and LAL assay for the total sample set (p-value 0.7146) using an alpha=0.10. There was also no statistical difference between assay types for the personal sample subset (p-value 0.3788). However, there was a statistically significant difference for the area sample subset (p-value 0.0698) and the lab and field blank sample subset (p-value 0.06638). Due to the small sample size, the power had to be adjusted to accommodate an alpha value of 0.10. The correlation between observations for all samples was found to be reasonably high with an r value of 0.867. The R2 coefficient value was found to be 0.7524. This indicates that 75.24% of the variability in LAL assay data can be explained by rFC assay data. The rFC assay serial dilution of standards gives a much more broad detection range of 0.005-5.0 EU/ml. The LAL standards only cover a fraction of this range, going from 0.005-0.04 EU/ml, 0.02-0.16 EU/ml, and 0.16-1.28 EU/ml. This dramatically decreases the chances of correctly identifying the dilution factor on the first attempt, and can create additional costs to use extra kits for re-analysis. The rFC assay can also be a considerably more cost effective option when purchasing in bulk of 20-30 kits at a time; however, when purchased individually, the LAL assay is less expensive. Overall, the development of the rFC assay greatly reduces the amount of horseshoe crabs harvested and bled for collection, reduces the costs of formulating the lysate enzyme, and most significantly, reduces the inconsistency in endotoxin measurement results
Political life writing in the Pacific
No full textThis book aims to reflect on the experiential side of writing political lives in the Pacific region. The collection touches on aspects of the life writing art that are particularly pertinent to political figures: public perception and ideology; identifying important political successes and policy initiatives; grappling with issues like corruption and age-old political science questions about leadership and ‘dirty hands’. These are general themes but they take on a particular significance in the Pacific context and so the contributions explore these themes in relation to patterns of colonisation and the memory of independence; issues elliptically captured by terms like ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’; the nature of ‘self’ presented in Pacific life writing; and the tendency for many of these texts to be written by ‘outsiders’, or at least the increasingly contested nature of what that term means
Blockchain verification and validation: Techniques, challenges, and research directions
No full textAs blockchain technology is gaining popularity in industry and society, solutions for Verification and Validation (V&V) of blockchain-based software applications (BC-Apps) have started gaining equal attention. To ensure that BC-Apps are properly developed before deployment, it is paramount to apply systematic V&V to verify their functional and non-functional requirements. While existing research aims at addressing the challenges of engineering BC-Apps by providing testing techniques and tools, blockchain-based software development is still an emerging research discipline, and therefore, best practices and tools for the V&V of BC-Apps are not yet sufficiently developed. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on V&V solutions for BC-Apps. Specifically, using a layered approach, we synthesize V&V tools and techniques addressing different components at various layers of the BC-App stack, as well as across the whole stack. Next, we provide a discussion on the challenges associated with BC-App V&V, and summarize a set of future research directions based on the challenges and gaps identified in existing research work. Our study aims to highlight the importance of BC-App V&V and pave the way for a disciplined, testable, and verifiable BC development. Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Cyber Securit
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