Computational Devices Research Articles

Trends in viable microbial bioburden on surfaces within a paediatric bone marrow transplant unit

Despite their role being historically overlooked, environmental surfaces have been shown to play a key role in the transmission of pathogens causative of healthcare-associated infection. To guide infection prevention and control (IPC) interventions and inform clinical risk assessments, more needs to be known about microbial surface bioburdens. To identify the trends in culturable bacterial contamination across communal touch sites over time in a hospital setting. Swab samples were collected over nine weeks from 22 communal touch sites in a paediatric bone marrow transplant unit. Samples were cultured on Columbia blood agar and aerobic colony counts (ACC) per 100cm2 were established for each site. Individual colony morphologies were grouped and identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry or 16s rDNA sequencing. Highest mean counts were observed for sites associated with ward management activity and computer devices (3.29 and 2.97 ACC/100cm2 respectively). A nurses' station keyboard had high mean ACC/100cm2 counts (10.67) and diversity, while laundry controls had high mean ACC/100cm2 counts (4.70) and low diversity. Micrococcus luteus was identified in all sampling groups. Clinical staff usage sites were contaminated with similar proportions of skin and environmental flora (52.19-46.59% respectively), but sites associated with parental activities were predominantly contaminated by environmental microflora (86.53%). The trends observed suggest patterns in microbial loading based on site activities, surface types and user groups. Improved understanding of environmental surface contamination could help support results interpretation and IPC interventions, improving patient safety.

Charge-transfer hyperbolic polaritons in α-MoO3/graphene heterostructures

Charge transfer is a fundamental interface process that can be harnessed for light detection, photovoltaics, and photosynthesis. Recently, charge transfer was exploited in nanophotonics to alter plasmon polaritons by involving additional non-polaritonic materials to activate the charge transfer. Yet, direct charge transfer between polaritonic materials has not been demonstrated. We report the direct charge transfer in pure polaritonic van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures of α-MoO3/graphene. We extracted the Fermi energy of 0.6 eV for graphene by infrared nano-imaging of charge transfer hyperbolic polaritons in the vdW heterostructure. This unusually high Fermi energy is attributed to the charge transfer between graphene and α-MoO3. Moreover, we have observed charge transfer hyperbolic polaritons in multiple energy–momentum dispersion branches with a wavelength elongation of up to 150%. With the support from the density functional theory calculation, we find that the charge transfer between graphene and α-MoO3, absent in mechanically assembled vdW heterostructures, is attributed to the relatively pristine heterointerface preserved in the epitaxially grown vdW heterostructure. The direct charge transfer and charge transfer hyperbolic polaritons demonstrated in our work hold great promise for developing nano-optical circuits, computational devices, communication systems, and light and energy manipulation devices.

Identifying 2SLGBTQ+ individuals experiencing homelessness using Point-in-Time counts: Evidence from the 2021 Toronto Street Needs Assessment survey.

The objective of this study was to utilize the data generated by the City of Toronto, Street Needs Assessment conducted in 2021 to explore the prevalence, causes, experiences, and characteristics of 2-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (2SLGBTQ+) individuals experiencing homelessness in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Data was collected by the City of Toronto during its Street Needs Assessment in April 2021. The Street Needs Assessment is a needs assessment survey and Point-in-Time count of people experiencing homelessness across the city of Toronto. Homelessness included any individual who was sleeping outdoors or staying in City-administered emergency/transitional shelters and shelter motels/hotels on the night of data collection. The Street Needs Assessment survey was administered to clients by trained shelter and outreach staff using a computer or mobile device. To ensure that survey questions were 2SLGBTQ+ inclusive, questions on sexual orientation, gender identity, and 2SLGBTQ+ identity were included in the survey. Two hundred and eighty-eight 2SLGBTQ+ individuals completed the survey. Compared to non-2SLGBTQ+ individuals experiencing homelessness, 2SLGBTQ+ respondents were younger at the time of survey completion and when they first experienced homelessness, were more likely to have been in foster care or a group home, reported higher rates of conflict with and/or abuse by a parent/guardian as their main pathway into homelessness, and were more likely to experience chronic homelessness. Our study results demonstrate that Street Needs Assessments and Point-in-Time counts can be used to examine homelessness in marginalized populations, including 2SLGBTQ+ individuals and that sexual orientation and gender identity questions need to be included on future government surveys. The consistency of findings from this study and previous research suggests that 2SLGBTQ+ individuals experience a significant need for population-based housing and social support services aimed at meeting the needs of 2SLGBTQ+ populations.

User-Centric Cloud Framework for Enhanced Data Security by Applying UK Algorithm

Cloud storage is the technical boon which has become the realm of many companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Drop box and many more. Remarkably all these companies are US based and thus eventually the personal data of every other nation is stacked on the Western companies. This leads the dependant country to a state of vulnerable. However if the dependant countries need to get autonomy they had to be provided with their own cloud storage which is impossible with the current mechanisms. With the facility of high computational devices and wide infrastructure and with the aid of secured encryption the cloud storage providers strongly protect the data of the users and enable their best service to the users. Also the cloud storage providers use the encryption algorithm in the provider infrastructure and data from user to provider infrastructure is done using the secured transmission. Finally the powerful infrastructure does the work to secure the data. This mechanism is certainly possible in the developed countries. But it is relatively impossible in the developing countries like India as it cannot afford the huge infrastructure to protect the public data. Even done, it might not result in generating profit because the subscription rate is comparatively lower in India than in developed countries. So to pursue the less profitable module is not suggestive and hence the reliability on western country cloud storage is over whelming. However to overcome this set back and to implement indigenous cloud storage this paper has attempted to implement the UK algorithm in user device environment through which mini and micro level cloud storage shall be developed resulting in the minimal cost of maintaining the cloud storage. In this case, cloud Storage provider do not need to have either the huge infrastructure nor the computational devices to process the data and no need of separate data transmission to secure the data as well. Employing the encryption algorithm in user environment helps to give full authority to the user on their data. The CS provider holds only encrypted data of the user and with low cost consumption this method is feasible even for the developing country like India.

C-RIA: RESISTIVITY DATA INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS IN CLOUD MODE

Geophysical methods generally require one or several processes before interpretation is carried out. This process usually requires software that requires fast computer technology. The better the computer device, the faster data can be processed. We propose a new approach in processing and interpreting and integrating geophysical data, especially resistivity data, using cloud technology. This technology is generally able to increase the speed of processing and interpreting geophysical data, which really requires devices with fast capabilities. Not to mention, if there is a lot of data being processed, it will take a long time just to process the data. Therefore, by using cloud technology the work can be done efficiently because it uses computers with modern and fast technology. In this research we apply this technology to geophysical data that is most often used for shallow exploration, namely the resistivity geoelectric method. With this research, we hope that data processing and geophysical data inversion will be more efficient and effective and the data will be safer.

Design and rationale of the Comprehensive intelligent Hypertension managEment SyStem (CHESS) evaluation study: A cluster randomized controlled trial for hypertension management in primary care

BackgroundHypertension management in China is suboptimal with high prevalence and low control rate due to various barriers, including lack of self-management awareness of patients and inadequate capacity of physicians. Digital therapeutic interventions including mobile health and computational device algorithms such as clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are scalable with the potential to improve blood pressure (BP) management and strengthen the healthcare system in resource-constrained areas, yet their effectiveness remains to be tested. The aim of this report is to describe the protocol of the Comprehensive intelligent Hypertension managEment SyStem (CHESS) evaluation study assessing the effect of a multi-faceted hypertension management system for supporting patients and physicians on BP lowering in primary care settings. Materials and MethodsThe CHESS evaluation study is a parallel-group, cluster-randomized controlled trial conducted in primary care settings in China. 41 primary care sites from 3 counties of China are randomly assigned to either the usual care or the intervention group with the implementation of the CHESS system, more than 1600 patients aged 35-80 years with uncontrolled hypertension and access to a smartphone by themselves or relatives are recruited into the study and followed up for 12 months. In the intervention group, participants receive patient-tailored reminders and alerts via messages or intelligent voice calls triggered by uploaded home blood pressure monitoring data and participants’ characteristics, while physicians receive guideline-based prescription instructions according to updated individual data from each visit, and administrators receive auto-renewed feedback of hypertension management performance from the data analysis platform. The multiple components of the CHESS system can work synergistically and have undergone rigorous development and pilot evaluation using a theory-informed approach. The primary outcome is the mean change in 24-hour ambulatory systolic BP from baseline to 12-month. DiscussionThe CHESS trial will provide evidence and novel insight into the effectiveness and feasibility of an implementation strategy using a comprehensive digital BP management system for reducing hypertension burden in primary care settings. Trial registrationhttps://www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT05605418

Comparing Data Quality and Response Behavior Between Smartphone, Tablet, and Computer Devices in Responsive Design Online Surveys

Mobile device usage in online surveys has steadily increased in recent years. As mobile devices differ, for example, in their handling, from computers, device effects within online surveys are found for several data quality indicators. However, results concerning these device effects are neither comprehensive nor conclusive because existing research are often based on non-optimized designs or do not account for the type of mobile device, for example, smartphone or tablet. This study uses data from the emigrant sample of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS) a probability-based online survey ( n = 4,888)—which made use of a mobile-optimized design—to compare data quality between smartphone, tablet, and computer respondents. Propensity score weighting was employed to account for device choice selectivity effects. The data quality indicators showed mixed results and smaller data quality differences across computers, smartphones, and tablets compared to previous studies. Higher dropout rates on mobile devices and here especially on smartphones remain the major challenge for survey participation, especially on small screens. However, our results render mixed-device data collection via mobile-optimized online surveys as a promising data collection approach, especially for exploiting the large response potentially associated with smartphone and tablet respondents.

Size-invariant two-in-one image secret sharing scheme based on gray mixing model

TiOISSS (Two-in-One Image Secret Sharing Scheme) can reconstruct the secret through computation and realize secret preview recovery when the power system is destroyed or the network is paralyzed. However, the visual quality of previewing images obtained by the existing TiOISSS is not satisfactory and usually affected by pixel expansion. To resolve the two problems, this paper introduces multiple gray values in the share image generation stage and establishes an optimization model to obtain the grayscale probabilistic matrix needed in the encoding stage. By using the probability matrix, a secret sharing algorithm is designed to obtain size-invariant shares with multiple gray values. Then, the secret information of another image can be shared and embedded into the multi-level gray shares through Lagrange polynomials over finite fields. In the decryption stage, the electronic shares can be directly superimposed based on a gray mixing model, or they can be printed to transparent films by a multi-level gray printer and then superimposed to obtain the preview image. If computational devices are available, a high-resolution gray image can be obtained by Lagrange interpolation over finite fields. Experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme is effective for generating shares without pixel expansion and improving the preview image quality.

Energy Efficient and Differentially Private Federated Learning via a Piggyback Approach

This paper aims to develop a differential private federated learning (FL) scheme with the least artificial noises added while minimizing the energy consumption of participating mobile devices. By observing that some communication efficient FL approaches and even the nature of wireless communications contribute to the differential privacy (DP) preservation of training data on mobile devices, in this paper, we propose to jointly leverage gradient compression techniques (i.e., gradient quantization and sparsification) and additive white Gaussian noises (AWGN) in wireless channels to develop a piggyback DP approach for FL over mobile devices. Even with the piggyback DP approach, information distortion caused by gradient compression and noise perturbation may slow down FL convergence, which in turn consumes more energy of mobile devices for local computing and model update communications. Thus, we theoretically analyze FL convergence and formulate an energy efficient FL optimization under piggyback DP, transmission power, and FL convergence constraints. Furthermore, we propose an efficient iterative algorithm where closed-form solutions for artificial DP noise and power control are derived. Extensive simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in terms of energy efficiency and privacy preservation.

ANALISIS KUALITAS WEBSITE BURSA EFEK INDONESIA DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN METODE GTMETRIX

The Indonesia Stock Exchange is an institution that organizes and provides facilities for securities in Indonesia. This study aims to analyze the quality of how effective and efficient the Indonesia Stock Exchange's website is which can be accessed by all people to get information that is faster and updated for users. Website performance measurement testing is carried out using website performance testing tools with GTMetrix, which can provide website scores and recommendations to improve the performance of the Indonesia Stock Exchange website and speedtest.net is used to measure the internet speed of computer devices by conducting analysis. The results of testing the Indonesia Stock Exchange's website were obtained using GTmetrix to produce an overall score which showed that the Indonesia Stock Exchange's website reached grade A with a green color indicating a percentage of 91%, indicating that the performance of the Indonesia Stock Exchange's website received a very good score. From the results of this performance, it can be concluded that the higher the percentage, the faster the website can be accessed.

Topological Insulators: Novel Phases of Matter with Unique Electronic Properties

Abstract: Topological insulators represent a fascinating class of materials that have garnered significant attention in the field of condensed matter physics. These unique materials exhibit insulating behavior in their bulk, while simultaneously possessing conducting surface or edge states that are topologically protected against backscattering and immune to certain types of disorder. This intriguing combination of properties arises from the intricate interplay between topology, the geometrical properties of quantum wavefunctions, and the electronic band structure of the material. Topological insulators hold immense potential for revolutionizing various fields, including electronics, spintronics, quantum computing, and energy-efficient devices. This paper provides a comprehensive exploration of topological insulators, delving into their theoretical foundations, material realizations, experimental observations, and potential applications. By bridging the gap between theoretical concepts and experimental discoveries, this work aims to shed light on the remarkable properties of these novel phases of matter and their implications for future technological advancements.

TA2Viewer: A web-based browser for Terminologia Anatomica and online anatomical knowledge.

TA2Viewer is an open-access, web-based application and database for browsing anatomical terms and associated medical information on a computer or mobile device (https://ta2viewer.openanatomy.org/). It incorporates the official digital version of the second edition of Terminologia Anatomica (TA2) as published by the Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology (FIPAT), and adopted by the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA) and other associations. It provides a dynamic and interactive view of the Latin and English nomenclatures. The organizational hierarchy of the terminology can be navigated by using a scrollable, expandable, and collapsible structured listing. Interactive search includes the official TA2 terms, synonyms, and related terms. TA2Viewer also uses TA2 term information to provide convenient access to other online resources, including Google web and image searches, PubMed, and Radiopaedia. Using cross-references from Wikidata, which were provided by the Wikipedia community, TA2Viewer offers links to Wikipedia, UBERON, UMLS, FMA, MeSH, NeuroNames, the public domain 20th edition of Gray's Anatomy, and other data sources. In addition, it can optionally use unofficial synonyms from Wikidata to provide multilingual term searches in hundreds of languages. By leveraging TA2, TA2Viewer provides free access to a curated anatomical nomenclature and serves as an index of online anatomical knowledge.

The lived experiences of play and the perspectives of disabled children and their parents surrounding brain-computer interfaces

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) offer promise to the play of children with significant physical impairments, as BCI technology can enable disabled children to control computer devices, toys, and robots using only their brain signals. However, there is little research on the unique needs of disabled children when it comes to BCI-enabled play. Thus, this paper explored the lived experiences of play for children with significant physical impairments and examined how BCI could potentially be implemented into disabled children’s play experiences by applying a social model of childhood disability. Descriptive qualitative methodology was employed by conducting four semi-structured interviews with two children with significant physical impairments and their parents. We found that disabled children’s play can be interpreted as passive or active depending on one’s definition and perceptions surrounding play. Moreover, disabled children continue to face physical, economic, and technological barriers in their play, as well as play restrictions from physical impairments. We urge that future research should strive to directly hear from disabled children themselves, as their perspectives may differ from their parents’ views. Also, future BCI development should strive to incorporate video games, recreational and entertainment applications/platforms, toys and switch-adapted toys, and power wheelchairs to better support the play of children with significant physical impairments. Implications for Rehabilitation Assistive technology research should strive to examine the social, infrastructural, and environmental barriers that continue to disable and restrict participation for disabled children and their families through applying a social model of childhood disability and other holistic frameworks that look beyond individual factors Future research that examines the needs and lives of disabled children should strive to directly seek the opinions and perspectives of disabled children themselves Brain-computer interface development should strive to incorporate video games, recreational and entertainment applications/platforms, toys and switch-adapted toys, and power wheelchairs to better support the play of children with significant physical impairments

Digital Space as a Scene of Extremist Crimes

Innovations in digital communications determined a trend for a sustainable causal link between technological diversity and qualitative changes in the mechanism of extremist crimes. Essentially, the processes of global informatization led to a paradigm shift, and the methods of transforming social behavior based on digital communications and social engineering technologies became some of the key elements in influencing the minds of the objects of extremist indoctrination. Due to this, it is necessary to offer a forensically grounded definition of digital space as a scene where extremist crimes are committed with the purpose of developing recommendation for identifying, capturing and systematizing evidentiary and other forensically relevant information, developing a forensic characteristic and then using it to understand the mechanism of suchlike criminal acts. The methodological basis for the research is the general dialectic method of research cognition. Besides, some general and special research methods were used: systemic-structural, formal-logical, statistical, specific-sociological, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, analogy. Data consolidation and modelling were also carried out. According to the author, in order to understand the mechanism of trace formation in the digital environment, it is necessary to identify changes resulting from the electromagnetic interactions between the signal and the environment in which the signal was processed, and to understand what factors influenced the process of electromagnetic interactions. Consequently, in order to identify, capture and establish a link between digital traces and electromagnetic interactions, it is necessary to establish a crossover mutual relationship between a computer device, a digital infrastructure element, as well as an event of interest to the subject of the investigation or an action that has left its reflection. For the extremist crimes committed in the digital space, it is expedient that the crime scene should be interpreted as the place where key criminal extremist actions were committed. Essentially, it is the place where extremist content was uploaded, the information and telecommunication network of the digital space was entered, and the criminal action of extremist nature was then committed, regardless of the place where its consequences happened.

Study on the Sodium-Doped Titania Interface-Type Memristor.

Memristors integrated into a crossbar-array architecture (CAA) are promising candidates for analog in-memory computing accelerators. However, the relatively low reliability of the memristor device and sneak current issues in CAA remain the main obstacles. Alkali ion-based interface-type memristors are promising solutions for implementing highly reliable memristor devices and neuromorphic hardware. This interface-type device benefits from self-rectifying and forming-free resistive switching (RS), and exhibits relatively low variation from device to device and cycle to cycle. In a previous report, we introduced an in situ grown Na/TiO2 memristor using atomic layer deposition (ALD) and proposed a RS mechanism from experimentally measured Schottky barrier modulation. Self-rectifying RS characteristics were observed by the asymmetric distribution of Na dopants and oxygen vacancies as the Ti metal used as the adhesion layer for the bottom electrode diffuses over the Pt electrode at 250 °C during the ALD process and is doped into the TiO2 layer. Here, we theoretically verify the modulation of the Schottky barrier at the TiO2/Pt electrode interface by Na ions. This study fabricated a Pt/Na/TiO2/Pt memristor device and confirmed its self-rectifying RS characteristics and stable retention characteristics for 24 h at 85 °C. Additionally, this device exhibited relative standard deviations of 27 and 7% in the high and low resistance states, respectively, in terms of cycle-to-cycle variation. To verify the RS mechanism, we conducted density functional theory simulations to analyze the impact of Na cations at interstitial sites on the Schottky barrier. Our findings can contribute to both fundamental understanding and the design of high-performance memristor devices for neuromorphic computing.

A3C: An Image-Association-Based Computing Device Authentication Framework for People with Upper Extremity Impairments

Current computing device authentication often presents accessibility barriers for people with upper extremity impairments (UEI). In this paper, we present a framework called Accessible image-Association-based Authentication for Computing-devices (A3C) , a novel recognition-based graphical authentication framework specifically designed for people with UEI to authenticate to their computing devices. A3C requires users to provide a set of primary images that the user knows that are recognizable to them and subsequently associate each primary image with a secondary image. To evaluate the efficacy of the A3C framework, we instantiated the framework by implementing a version of A3C called A3C-FA , which uses images of faces of people the user knows as the primary image and animal images as the secondary image. We then performed three studies to evaluate A3C-FA: a shoulder-surfing attack study ( N=319 ), a close-adversary attack study ( N=268 ), and a usability study with people with UEI ( N=14 ). We found that A3C was robust against both shoulder-surfing and close-adversary attacks. We also performed a detailed study to evaluate the accessibility of A3C-FA. Our participants reported that A3C-FA was more usable and more secure than the authentication approaches with which they were familiar. Based on these findings, we suggest four areas of future research to further improve the design of A3C framework.

Correlation and collective behaviour in Adler-type locally coupled oscillators at the edge of chaos

Dynamical systems can be analysed as computational devices capable of performing information processing. In coupled oscillators, enlarged capabilities are expected when the set of units is formed by subsets with collective behaviour within them but weak correlation between the subsets. A system of non-linear oscillators weakly coupled in the phase approximation is studied. The informational distance maps show different regimes of collective behaviour, ranging from independent, local, and global, as the control parameters of the system are changed. This rich set of behaviours happens despite the simple nature of the model used. Complex hierarchies between oscillators can be identified near the edge of chaos region in the informational distance dendrograms. We identify the emergence of local collective regimes, further corroborated by the spatiotemporal maps. Correlation diagrams also exhibit non-trivial dependence for the system at the edge of chaos.

Robust residual convolutional neural network based pupil tracking for low-computational power applications

Existing Deep Fully Convolutional Network (DFCN) based pupil segmentation models have been shown to perform robust and accurate pupil detection. However, they lack high computational resources when real-time predictions for low computational wearable devices such as Raspberry Pi are of interest. Simple FCN (Fully Convolutional Network) models, on the other hand, can provide real-time yet not as accurate predictions with low computational power devices. In this study, we address this dilemma by proposing a CNN (Convolutional Neural Network)-based model, Residual CNN, with several advanced operations such as residual connections, Squeeze and Excitation (SE) attention, and Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (ASPP) to improve the prediction performance without complicating the model. Moreover, we leverage transfer learning by training synthetic images, then fine-tuning them with authentic eye images. We also fully quantize our model parameters to speed up the predictions and apply the Quantization Aware Training (QAT) strategy to obtain accurate predictions. Our experiments show that our quantized Res-CNN model trained by QAT strategy with 40x30 resolution images provides robust yet real-time predictions with an average of 1.351 Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) for the pupil center predictions and 8.317 ms response time per image on Raspberry Pi.

Field-free deterministic switching of all-van der Waals spin-orbit torque system above room temperature.

Two-dimensional van der Waals (vdW) magnetic materials hold promise for the development of high-density, energy-efficient spintronic devices for memory and computation. Recent breakthroughs in material discoveries and spin-orbit torque control of vdW ferromagnets have opened a path for integration of vdW magnets in commercial spintronic devices. However, a solution for field-free electric control of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) vdW magnets at room temperatures, essential for building compact and thermally stable spintronic devices, is still missing. Here, we report a solution for the field-free, deterministic, and nonvolatile switching of a PMA vdW ferromagnet, Fe3GaTe2, above room temperature (up to 320 K). We use the unconventional out-of-plane anti-damping torque from an adjacent WTe2 layer to enable such switching with a low current density of 2.23 × 106 A cm-2. This study exemplifies the efficacy of low-symmetry vdW materials for spin-orbit torque control of vdW ferromagnets and provides an all-vdW solution for the next generation of scalable and energy-efficient spintronic devices.

The Cybercrime Acts and the Electronic Transaction in International Law

Cyberthreats “Cybercrime” is a “criminal offence that may be committed on or through a computer system generally connected to a network”. As a result, it is a new type of crime and delinquency that varies from previous forms in that it takes place in a virtual location known as “cyberspace”. In recent years, the democratisation of computer access and the globalisation of networks have both played a role in the growth of cybercrime. In fact, not isolated and the institutions in several States are fully aware of the seriousness of this phenomenon, which goes beyond the borders of each State. If all members of Jordan’s criminal justice system are unaware of sophisticated computer and electronic device technologies, cybercrime will continue to rise. Despite technological developments and the information revolution, some states limits the subject of criminal protection to cash and fails to protect information funds against fraudulent acquisition.International law plays a significant role in combating cybercrime and establishing guidelines for cooperation among nations.