Resilience Properties Research Articles

Utilizing Web Trackers for Sybil Defense

User tracking has become ubiquitous practice on the Web, allowing services to recommend behaviorally targeted content to users. In this article, we design Alibi, a system that utilizes such readily available personalized content, generated by recommendation engines in real time, as a means to tame Sybil attacks. In particular, by using ads and other tracker-generated recommendations as implicit user “certificates,” Alibi is capable of creating meta-profiles that allow for rapid and inexpensive validation of users’ uniqueness, thereby enabling an Internet-wide Sybil defense service. We demonstrate the feasibility of such a system, exploring the aggregate behavior of recommendation engines on the Web and demonstrating the richness of the meta-profile space defined by such inputs. We further explore the fundamental properties of such meta-profiles, i.e., their construction, uniqueness, persistence, and resilience to attacks. By conducting a user study, we show that the user meta-profiles are robust and show important scaling effects. We demonstrate that utilizing even a moderate number of popular Web sites empowers Alibi to tame large-scale Sybil attacks.

A measurement of community seismic resilience in sub-city districts of Mashhad, Iran

Communities that are more resilient to seismic hazards are often able to retain their functions in a time of crisis and experience faster recovery. This study develops a holistic approach for assessing community seismic resilience in thirteen sub-city districts of Mashhad. Three resilience properties (robustness, resourcefulness, and redundancy) are matched with six community resilience dimensions to construct a Community Seismic Resilience Index (CSRI). The aim of CSRI is to quantify districts’ coping capacities to mitigate the adverse impacts of a hazard, and their adaptive capacities to recover in an efficient and timely manner. The geography of CSRI suggests that there is a division between the east and the west of the city that builds a pattern of spatially segregated resilience to seismic hazards. Based on the findings, urban policies should be directed toward enhancing the robustness of communities and building redundancy into institutional/managerial systems in order to build more resilient communities.

Establishment of the Psychometric Properties of a Disaster Resilience Measuring Tool for Healthcare Rescuers in China: A Cross-Sectional Study

The aim of this study was to test the validity and reliability of a tool for measuring the disaster resilience of healthcare disaster rescuers. A cross-sectional study involving 936 healthcare disaster rescuers of the Sichuan Disaster Response Team was conducted to establish the psychometric properties of the disaster resilience measuring tool (DRMT). Item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were adopted to analyze the data. Item analysis showed that all but three items had the critical ratio over 3, which indicates adequate discriminability for inclusion in the measuring tool. The exploratory factor analysis showed that 65.93% of the total variance was explained by four factors—self-efficacy, social support, positive growth, and altruism. The confirmatory factor analysis showed goodness of fit for the four-factor model: CMIN/DF (2.846), GFI (0.916 ≥ 0.90), CFI (0.949 ≥ 0.90), AGFI (0.891 ≥ 0.80), and RMSEA (0.063 ≤ 0.08). Criterion validity demonstrated significant associations of the DRMT and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (P < 0.01, r = 0.566). Convergent validity was established by correlation with stress (P < 0.05, r = − 0.095), depression (P < 0.01, r = − 0.127), posttraumatic stress disorder-PCL-C (P < 0.05, r = − 0.100), compassion satisfaction (P < 0.01, r = 0.536), and burnout (P < 0.01, r = − 0.330). The DRMT demonstrated adequate internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha > 0.84) and stability over the two-week study period (intraclass correlation coefficient > 0.85), and a cut-off point of 61 was suggested. The disaster resilience measuring tool has satisfactory psychometric properties and is a valid, reliable, and valuable instrument for assessing disaster resilience in healthcare rescue workers. The scale needs to be tested further among other populations and those from other cultures.

Microbial transitions from health to disease.

Recent advances in our understanding of the microbial populations that colonize the human mouth, their acquisition, interdependency, and coevolution with the host, bring a different perspective to the mechanisms underpinning the maintenance of periodontal health and the development of disease. In this work we suggest that our knowledge map of the etiology of periodontal health and disease can be viewed as a broad, highly connected, and integrated system that spans the entire spectrum of microbe/host/clinical interactions. The overall concept of present Periodontology 2000, that the microbial biofilm can be considered a human tissue of bacteriological origin, is entirely consistent with this integrated system view. The health-associated community structure of microbial biofilms can be considered a system that is normally resilient to perturbation. Equally, there is evidence to suggest that the dysbiotic community structure in disease may share similar resilience properties. In both instances, the resilience may be governed by the precise makeup of the acquired microbiome and by the genetics of the host. Understanding the mechanisms that enable the resistance to change of healthy and dysbiotic microbial populations may be important in the development of approaches to prevent the progression of disease and to restore health in diseased individuals.

VERDICT: A Language and Framework for Engineering Cyber Resilient and Safe System

The ever-increasing complexity of cyber-physical systems is driving the need for assurance of critical infrastructure and embedded systems. However, traditional methods to secure cyber-physical systems—e.g., using cyber best practices, adapting mechanisms from information technology systems, and penetration testing followed by patching—are becoming ineffective. This paper describes, in detail, Verification Evidence and Resilient Design In anticipation of Cybersecurity Threats (VERDICT), a language and framework to address cyber resiliency. When we use the term resiliency, we mean hardening a system such that it anticipates and withstands attacks. VERDICT analyzes a system in the face of cyber threats and recommends design improvements that can be applied early in the system engineering process. This is done in two steps: (1) Analyzing at the system architectural level, with respect to cyber and safety requirements and (2) by analyzing at the component behavioral level, with respect to a set of cyber-resiliency properties. The framework consists of three parts: (1) Model-Based Architectural Analysis and Synthesis (MBAAS); (2) Assurance Case Fragments Generation (ACFG); and (3) Cyber Resiliency Verifier (CRV). The VERDICT language is an Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) annex for modeling the safety and security aspects of a system’s architecture. MBAAS performs probabilistic analyses, suggests defenses to mitigate attacks, and generates attack-defense trees and fault trees as evidence of resiliency and safety. It can also synthesize optimal defense solutions—with respect to implementation costs. In addition, ACFG assembles MBAAS evidence into goal structuring notation for certification purposes. CRV analyzes behavioral aspects of the system (i.e., the design model)—modeled using the Assume-Guarantee Reasoning Environment (AGREE) annex and checked against cyber resiliency properties using the Kind 2 model checker. When a property is proved or disproved, a minimal set of vital system components responsible for the proof/disproof are identified. CRV also provides rich and localized diagnostics so the user can quickly identify problems and fix the design model. This paper describes the VERDICT language and each part of the framework in detail and includes a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of VERDICT—in this case, a delivery drone.

FM-FRP: new materiality in FRP as architectured matter with textile attributes

FRP material properties offer unique opportunities for architecture, but their mould-based standard forming processes stand in contrast to contemporary practices, aiming for variation and surface articulation. Fabric materiality FRP (FM-FRP) is an alternative approach to the design and fabrication of architectural FRP that enhances the textile qualities of the fibre material in the composite. Through integration of key textile attributes and a set methodology, two FM-FRP material systems are developed. Released from the necessity of moulds, design principles of biological composites can be integrated into synthetic FRP shaping processes and resilient properties show. A new materiality of FRP emerges, blurring boundaries between material and structure. Functionality is achieved by the intricate spatial distribution of voids and matter, resulting in highly porous volumetric FRP material. Taking-up on the approach and terminology of material-science, a new understanding of FM-FRP as architectured material is suggested. It opens a new path for its development towards enhanced functionalities, to enable future more sustainable application for the architectural field.

Properties improvement of linear polyimide aerogels via formation of doubly cross-linked polyimide-polyvinylpolymethylsiloxane network structure

The properties of linear polyimide aerogels (LPAs) were improved by introducing the network structure of polyvinylpolymethylsiloxane (PVPMS) into that of LPAs. The formed doubly cross-linked polyimide (PI)-PVPMS network structure endowed samples with resilience and fire-retardant property. On the one hand, the PI-PVPMS composite aerogels (PPCAs) can recover to 20% of their own height rather than exhibit almost no resilience after compression. On the other hand, they can maintain high structural integrity instead of showing drastic volume shrinkage after prolonged burning. Moreover, our results showed that the introduced network structure of PVPMS not only weakened the effect of PI rigidity on the structural properties of LPAs, but also played a leading role in the physical properties of synthesized PPCAs. The obtained PPCAs with different PI rigidity exhibited similar microstructure and properties, which indicated that the lower cost monomers of PI could be selected to prepare PPCAs and promote the large-scale production.

Random Multi Hazard Resilience Modeling of Engineered Systems and Critical Infrastructure

The random occurrence of natural and manmade hazards causes significant interruption to normal functionality of engineered systems and critical infrastructures (CIs). Given their ubiquitous nature and the necessity to maintain their performance, there is a global need to quantify these systems’ resilience under multi hazard, particularly when the hazards exhibit random and dynamic frequency and severity. Discussed in this study is the resilience quantification of engineered systems and CIs as a function of their performance during and after the multi hazard; to account for the uncertainty of the hazard and recovery resource availability, stochastic performance metrics such as availability and recovery time are investigated across time and adopted to quantify resilience as a piecewise function. The property of resilience is thoroughly investigated with respect to systems’ reliability metrics. Extensive simulation studies and a numerical example are provided to validate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed resilience models.

Extremum Seeking Under Persistent Gradient Deception: A Switching Systems Approach

This letter focuses on extremum seeking (ES) controllers with adversarial attacks in the form of deception signals. While a persistent attack in a feedback controller may be difficult to identify or mitigate, for a broad class of algorithms it suffices to achieve mitigation “sufficiently often” in order to preserve the stability properties of the system. In this letter, we explore for the first time the resilience properties of ES controllers with respect to a class of persistent multiplicative attacks that are purposely designed to destabilize optimization-based feedback controllers. By leveraging Lyapunov-based arguments for switching systems and singular-perturbation theory for hybrid dynamical systems, we characterize a family of persistent multiplicative attacks under which gradient-based ES, Newton-Like ES, and Accelerated gradient ES controllers provably preserve their stability properties.

Role of crystalline silica admixture in mitigating ettringite-induced heave in lime-treated sulfate-rich soils

A research study was designed and conducted to evaluate the applicability of using crystalline silica-rich material as a co-additive with calcium-based stabilisers to treat sulfate-rich expansive soils. Extensive laboratory tests were conducted on lime-treated sulfate-rich soils, with and without crystalline silica admixture, to evaluate the improvements in engineering properties, including swell strain, unconfined compressive strength and resilient moduli properties. The influence of co-additive dosage, curing period and duration of moisture exposure was studied to gain insights into the behaviour of treated soils. Supplementary mineralogical and microstructural studies including X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope imaging and differential scanning calorimetry studies were performed on the treated soils to detect the formation of ettringite mineral and cementitious gel compounds. Test results indicated that the use of crystalline silica facilitated enhancement of both the strength before and after capillary soaking, and the resilient moduli properties, while suppressing ettringite mineral formation and associated free swell strains in the treated soils. Mineralogical and engineering studies showed the dominance of pozzolanic activity between lime and crystalline silica over ettringite formation and hence contributed to the effective stabilisation of sulfate-rich soils. Overall, the paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the role of crystalline silica admixture for mitigating deleterious sulfate heaving in lime-treated soils.

Adaptive robust control of a multi-degree-of-freedom mechanical plant with resilient properties

This paper considers the task of designing adaptive robust control of an indefinite multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) nonlinear mechanical plant with resilient properties with simultaneous adaptive compensation of immeasurable external disturbing influences. An unknown disturbance is assumed to be deterministic and is presented as the output of a linear autonomous model with unknown constant parameters. To solve the problem of adaptive compensation of disturbances, it is proposed to use an adaptive observer of external disturbances. Adaptive robust control of the very uncertain mechanical plant with resilient properties is synthesized based on the adaptive integrator bypass method and tuning algorithms with parametric projection, and is also combined with the estimation of the disturbance adaptive observer.

Якість життя населення: зміст і специфіка регіонального рівня

The article is aimed at developing the theoretical-applied provisions of the quality of life of the population with the identification of the specifics of assessment and provision at the regional level. Based on accounting the definitions of quality of life operated by international and government structures, domestic and foreign scholars have proposed to understand this category as an indicator of the degree of provision of the population with benefits in both the quantitative and the qualitative assessment, taking into account the environmental conditions and its stability for long-term satisfaction of material, cultural and spiritual needs. As a result of the study, the difference between the concept of quality of life and other evaluative indicators of human activity was identified, namely: standard of living, well-being, human and sustainable development. The quality of life involves the combination of both the quantitative and the qualitative assessment of the degree of provision of benefits and meeting the needs of the population, taking into account the environmental conditions and achieving a stable state along with the properties of resiliency. It is indicated the relativity of the analysis of the quality of life at different levels, and therefore the specifics of its understanding at the global level and at the levels of the State, region, community, household, person are determined. The criteria for assessing the quality of life are systematized, which allows to distinguish the specifics of its provision at the levels of the State and its regions. The main objectives of the policy of ensuring the quality of life of the population are determined in the context of creating an environment of opportunities to motivate the market environment to produce benefits, creating a competitive environment in the conditions of global mobility, ensuring stability, providing high-quality social services and developing social infrastructure. Prospect for further research is to determine the system of mechanisms of regional policy of ensuring the quality of life of the population, the formation and implementation of which in Ukraine requires scientific substantiations in the course of further decentralization.

Asynchronous Decentralized Distributed Training of Acoustic Models

Large-scale distributed training of deep acoustic models plays an important role in today's high-performance automatic speech recognition (ASR). In this paper we investigate a variety of asynchronous decentralized distributed training strategies based on data parallel stochastic gradient descent (SGD) to show their superior performance over the commonly-used synchronous distributed training via allreduce, especially when dealing with large batch sizes. Specifically, we study three variants of asynchronous decentralized parallel SGD (ADPSGD), namely, fixed and randomized communication patterns on a ring as well as a delay-by-one scheme. We introduce a mathematical model of ADPSGD, give its theoretical convergence rate, and compare the empirical convergence behavior and straggler resilience properties of the three variants. Experiments are carried out on an IBM supercomputer for training deep long short-term memory (LSTM) acoustic models on the 2000-hour Switchboard dataset. Recognition and speedup performance of the proposed strategies are evaluated under various training configurations. We show that ADPSGD with fixed and randomized communication patterns cope well with slow learners. When learners are equally fast, ADPSGD with the delay-by-one strategy has the fastest convergence with large batches. In particular, using the delay-by-one strategy, we can train the acoustic model in less than 2 hours using 128 V100 GPUs with competitive word error rates.

The Impact of Wood Waste on the Properties of Silicone-Based Composites.

The impact of wood waste on the mechanical and biological properties of silicone-based composites was investigated using wood waste from oak, hornbeam, beech, and spruce trees. The density, abrasion resistance, resilience, hardness, and static tensile properties of the obtained WPC (wood–plastic composites) were tested. The results revealed slight changes in the density, increased abrasion resistance, decreased resilience, increased hardness, and decreased strain at break and stress at break compared with untreated silicone. The samples also showed no cytotoxicity to normal human dermal fibroblast, NHDF. The possibility of using prepared composites as materials to create structures on the seabed was also investigated by placing samples in a marine aquarium for one week and then observing sea algae growth.

Time Domain Channel Estimation and Equalization of CP-OTFS Under Multiple Fractional Dopplers and Residual Synchronization Errors

In the last few years, orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation has received significant attention as an alternative to OFDM especially for high mobilty scenarios. In this work, we develop a delay-Doppler domain embedded pilot based time domain channel estimation for cyclic prefix (CP)-OTFS in the presence of residual frame timing offset, carrier frequency offset and fractional multiple Doppler. One of the reasons for time domain processing is that the time domain channel representation is relatively more sparse as compared to its delay Doppler domain representation in the presence of residual synchronization errors. We also describe a time domain low complexity linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalization and successive interference cancellation (SIC) receiver for LDPC (low density parity check) coded CP-OTFS in this work. We further show the impact of residual frame timing offset, carrier frequency offset and fractional multiple Doppler on OTFS symbols. It is seen from the extensive Monte Carlo simulation results that the estimation and compensation methods presented here provide necessary resilience properties to OTFS. We bring out the tolerance of OTFS to such residual synchronization errors. It is further observed that the SIC is able to improve the performance of the system such that it almost matches that of the ideal knowledge based MMSE equalization. We also show the performance of RCP (reduced CP)-OTFS when used with the developed channel estimation and equalization algorithms. A unified signal processing flow for OTFS and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is also described in this work to motivate studies on coexistence between the two as well as to encourage investigations on a seamless transition between OFDM and OTFS based systems for future adaptive air interface design.

Effect of UV-Curable Inkjet Printing Parameters on Physical, Low-Stress Mechanical, and Aesthetic Properties of Polypropylene Knitted Fabrics

As the use of textile polypropylene (PP) fibers becomes more common in commercial textiles and sportswear, the investigation of the effects of UV-curable ink on the heat-sensitive PP knitted fabrics is crucial to optimize functional clothing design. This study investigated the effects of UV-curable ink on the heat-sensitive PP knitted fabrics when the ink was cured using UV light at room temperature, to avoid degradation of the PP fabric by high temperature, and provided an alternative coloring method for PP fabric used in sportswear. The influences of printing parameters such as the printing distance, number of overprints, and color of ink on fabrics as well as aesthetic, physical, and low-stress mechanical properties in terms of tensile, bending, shearing, surface, and compression were systematically investigated. The results indicated that the physical properties and low-stress mechanical properties of PP fabrics printed with UV-curable ink were significantly affected by the number of overprints and the color of the prints, whereas the color appearance was affected mainly by the number of overprints and the printing distance. In terms of the fabric’s hand value, only 2HB and 2HG5 were significantly affected by the number of overprints and the color of the prints, with the prediction rate exceeding 40 % among the low-stress mechanical properties. The fabric’s hand value was not significantly affected by the thin UV-cured ink film when compared with the fabric itself. Fabric printed in a color with the greatest lightness and the fewest overprints had the lowest fabric weight, thickness, and color difference (ΔE) towards the reference color, in addition to better bending recovery and resilience properties. The new knowledge from this study can provide an alternative coloring method for PP knitted fabric to increase the design variety available to textile designers who use PP fabric. The results from this study contribute to the textile and knitwear design industry.

The architecture of corneal stromal striae on optical coherence tomography and histology in an animal model and in humans

The purpose of this study was to use a portable optical coherence tomography (OCT) for characterization of corneal stromal striae (CSS) in an ovine animal model and human corneas with histological correlation, in order to evaluate their architectural pattern by image analysis. Forty-six eyes from female adult sheep (older than 2 years), and 12 human corneas, were included in our study. The eyes were examined in situ by a portable OCT, without enucleation. All OCT scans were performed immediately after death, and then the eyes were delivered to a qualified histology laboratory. In the ovine animal model, CSS were detected with OCT in 89.1% (41/46) of individual scans and in 93.4% (43/46) of histological slices. In human corneas, CSS were found in 58.3% (7/12) of cases. In both corneal types, CSS appeared as “V”- or “X”-shaped structures, with very similar angle values of 70.8° ± 4° on OCT images and 71° ± 4° on histological slices (p ≤ 0.01). Data analysis demonstrated an excellent degree of reproducibility and inter-rater reliability of measurements (p < 0.001). The present study demonstrated that by using a portable OCT device, CSS can be visualized in ovine and human corneas. This finding suggests their generalized presence in various mammals. The frequent observation, close to 60%, of such collagen texture in the corneal stroma, similar to a ‘truss bridge’ design, permits to presume that it plays an important structural role, aimed to distribute tensile and compressive forces in various directions, conferring resilience properties to the cornea.

Metabolic mind and primordial instinct. From biochemistry to the embodiment applied to nutrition. Vegan integrated diet. One step forward.

In this era when the whole world is in a psychotic recession, where Covid-19 feeds on human substrate unprepared for the "pandemic state", the only real salvation is listening to one's metabolism. It is not a title from Hollywood, it is a real lockdown of the human race which, once again in history, demonstrates its ineptitude which, by syllogism, would mean a lack of resilient property. A resilience not in relation to a material, but metaphorically projected to a reflection where man, the only protagonist endowed with intellect, once again makes the same mistakes by entering the usual loop that punctually repeats itself every decade. Mind and body seem to be no longer distinguishable and have lost the structuring quality that their role determined and made possible constructive actions on the world. The distance between observer and observed, between mind and matter, has faded as if to cruelly provoke a loss of consciousness and identity crisis, hindering the creation of new models, theories and correlations that allow to act in this world. Neuroscience is shedding light on crucial aspects of the nervous system, such as the modalities of neuronal growth and selection of unused synapses (Edelman 1987), as well as the effects of learning or repeated and recorded experiences, on metabolism and cellular gene transcription ( Kandel, Schartz, Jessel, 1991). Psychosomatics with a view to multifactoriality and interdependence for mind-body study are the key points for the study presented here.

Metabolic mind and primordial instinct. From biochemistry to the embodiment applied to nutrition. Vegan integrated diet. One step forward.

In this era when the whole world is in a psychotic recession, where Covid-19 feeds on human substrate unpreparedfor the “pandemic state”, the only real salvation is listening to one’s metabolism. It is not a title from Hollywood, itis a real lockdown of the human race which, once again in history, demonstrates its ineptitude which, by syllogism,would mean a lack of resilient property. A resilience not in relation to a material, but metaphorically projected to areflection where man, the only protagonist endowed with intellect, once again makes the same mistakes by enteringthe usual loop that punctually repeats itself every decade.Mind and body seem to be no longer distinguishable and have lost the structuring quality that their role determinedand made possible constructive actions on the world. The distance between observer and observed, between mindand matter, has faded as if to cruelly provoke a loss of consciousness and identity crisis, hindering the creation of newmodels, theories and correlations that allow to act in this world. Neuroscience is shedding light on crucial aspects ofthe nervous system, such as the modalities of neuronal growth and selection of unused synapses (Edelman 1987), aswell as the effects of learning or repeated and recorded experiences, on metabolism and cellular gene transcription( Kandel, Schartz, Jessel, 1991). Psychosomatics with a view to multifactoriality and interdependence for mind-bodystudy are the key points for the study presented here.

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes filled thermoplastic vulcanizate dielectric elastomer with excellent resilience properties via inhibiting MWCNT network formation

AbstractMultiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) filled thermoplastic vulcanizate (TPV) dielectric elastomer based on polypropylene (PP)/ethylene‐propylene‐diene monomer blends were fabricated via a simple melt compounding. MWCNT could be selectively distributed in PP matrix which induced by the dynamic vulcanization reaction. By reducing the rotor speed of melting blending to 60 rpm, the MWCNT network formation can be effectively inhibited, which have been verified by a higher volume resistivity (above 109 Ω cm). With increasing the MWCNTs loading to 4.1 vol%, a maximum increase, 423.4% (from 3.04 to 12.87), of the dielectric constant have been achieved for TPV/MWCNTs elastomer at 103 Hz, while the dielectric loss is still lower than 0.072 at 101–103 Hz. Meanwhile, with various MWCNTs loading, the tensile recovery of these series TPV elastomer does not change anymore, resulting an excellent rebound resistance. The TPV elastomer exhibits an enhanced dielectric performance and balanced elastic recovery performance, providing a simple and scalable melt compounding approach to fabricate high‐performance dielectric elastomer.