Bitcoin is a popular cryptocurrency that records all transactions in a distributed append-only public ledger called blockchain . The security of Bitcoin heavily relies on the incentive-compatible ...proof-of-work (PoW) based distributed consensus protocol, which is run by the network nodes called miners . In exchange for the incentive, the miners are expected to maintain the blockchain honestly. Since its launch in 2009, Bitcoin economy has grown at an enormous rate, and it is now worth about 150 billions of dollars. This exponential growth in the market value of bitcoins motivate adversaries to exploit weaknesses for profit, and researchers to discover new vulnerabilities in the system, propose countermeasures, and predict upcoming trends. In this paper, we present a systematic survey that covers the security and privacy aspects of Bitcoin. We start by giving an overview of the Bitcoin system and its major components along with their functionality and interactions within the system. We review the existing vulnerabilities in Bitcoin and its major underlying technologies such as blockchain and PoW-based consensus protocol. These vulnerabilities lead to the execution of various security threats to the standard functionality of Bitcoin. We then investigate the feasibility and robustness of the state-of-the-art security solutions. Additionally, we discuss the current anonymity considerations in Bitcoin and the privacy-related threats to Bitcoin users along with the analysis of the existing privacy-preserving solutions. Finally, we summarize the critical open challenges, and we suggest directions for future research towards provisioning stringent security and privacy solutions for Bitcoin.
Grazing effects on soil properties under different soil and environmental conditions across the globe are often controversial. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the overall magnitude and ...direction of the grazing effects on soils. This global meta-analysis was conducted using the mixed model method to address the overall effects of grazing intensities (heavy, moderate, and light) on 15 soil properties based on 287 papers published globally from 2007 to 2019. Our findings showed that heavy grazing significantly increased the soil BD (11.3% relative un-grazing) and PR (52.5%) and reduced SOC (-10.8%), WC (-10.8%), NO.sub.3 .sup.- (-23.5%), and MBC (-27.9%) at 0-10 cm depth, and reduced SOC (-22.5%) and TN (-19.9%) at 10-30 cm depth. Moderate grazing significantly increased the BD (7.5%), PR (46.0%), and P (18.9%) (0-10 cm), and increased pH (4.1%) and decreased SOC (-16.4%), TN (-10.6%), and P (-23.9%) (10-30 cm). Light grazing significantly increased the SOC (10.8%) and NH.sub.4 .sup.+ (28.7%) (0-10 cm). Heavy grazing showed much higher mean probability (0.70) leading to overgrazing than the moderate (0.14) and light (0.10) grazing. These findings indicate that, globally, compared to un-grazing, heavy grazing significantly increased soil compaction and reduced SOC, NO.sub.3 .sup.-, and soil moisture. Moderate grazing significantly increased soil compaction and alkalinity and reduced SOC and TN. Light grazing significantly increased SOC and NH.sub.4 .sup.+ . Cattle grazing impacts on soil compaction, SOC, TN, and available K were higher than sheep grazing, but lower for PR. Climate significantly impacted grazing effects on SOM, TN, available P, NH.sub.4 .sup.+, EC, CEC, and PR. Heavy grazing can be more detrimental to soil quality based on BD, SOC, TN, C: N, WC, and K than moderate and light grazing. However, global grazing intensities did not significantly impact most of the 15 soil properties, and the grazing effects on them had insignificant changes over the years.
Technological advancements worldwide at rapid pace in the area of materials science and nanotechnology have made it possible to synthesize nanoparticles with desirable properties not exhibited by the ...bulk material. Among variety of available nanomaterials, graphene, carbon nanotubes, zinc oxide and gold nanopartilces proved to be elite and offered amazing electrochemical biosensing. This encourages us to write a review which highlights the recent achievements in the construction of genosensor, immunosensor and enzymatic biosensor based on the above nanomaterials. Carbon based nanomaterials offers a direct electron transfer between the functionalized nanomaterials and active site of bioreceptor without involvement of any mediator which not only amplifies the signal but also provide label free sensing. Gold shows affinity towards immunological molecules and is most routinely used for immunological sensing. Zinc oxide can easily immobilize proteins and hence offers a large group of enzyme based biosensor. Modification of the working electrode by introduction of these nanomaterials or combination of two/three of above nanomaterials together and forming a nanocomposite reflected the best results with excellent stability, reproducibility and enhanced sensitivity. Highly attractive electrochemical properties and electrocatalytic activity of these elite nanomaterials have facilitated achievement of enhanced signal amplification needed for the construction of ultrasensitive electrochemical affinity biosensors for detection of glucose, cholesterol, Escherichia coli, influenza virus, cancer, human papillomavirus, dopamine, glutamic acid, IgG, IgE, uric acid, ascorbic acid, acetlycholine, cortisol, cytosome, sequence specific DNA and amino acids. Recent researches for bedside biosensors are also discussed.
•Graphene, CNTs, ZnO and Gold belong to Elite Group of Nanomaterials.•Elite Nanomateirals based modified electrodes for Electrochemical Sensing of Analytes.•Biosesnors for healthcare applications.•Promising Biosensors for on site Detection of Explosives.
In this work, six voiced/unvoiced speech classifiers based on the autocorrelation function (ACF), average magnitude difference function (AMDF), cepstrum, weighted ACF (WACF), zero crossing rate and ...energy of the signal (ZCR‐E), and neural networks (NNs) have been simulated and implemented in real time using the TMS320C6713 DSP starter kit. These speech classifiers have been integrated into a linear‐predictive‐coding‐based speech analysis‐synthesis system and their performance has been compared in terms of the percentage of the voiced/unvoiced classification accuracy, speech quality, and computation time. The results of the percentage of the voiced/unvoiced classification accuracy and speech quality show that the NN‐based speech classifier performs better than the ACF‐, AMDF‐, cepstrum‐, WACF‐ and ZCR‐E‐based speech classifiers for both clean and noisy environments. The computation time results show that the AMDF‐based speech classifier is computationally simple, and thus its computation time is less than that of other speech classifiers, while that of the NN‐based speech classifier is greater compared with other classifiers.
This article presents an overview of the developments in the field of organic photovoltaics (PVs) with liquid crystals (LCs). A brief introduction to the PV and LC fields is given first, followed by ...application of various LCs in organic PVs. Details of LCs used in bilayer solar cells, bulk heterojunction solar cells and dye-sensitized solar cells have been given. All the liquid crystalline materials used in PVs are structured and the efficiency of solar cells is tabulated. Finally, an outlook into the future of this newly emerging, fascinating and exciting field of self-organizing supramolecular LC PV research is provided.
Recent years have witnessed tremendous advances in point-of-care diagnostics (POCD), which are a result of continuous developments in biosensors, microfluidic, bioanalytical platforms, assay formats, ...lab-on-a-chip technologies, and complementary technologies. This special issue targets the critical advances in POCD and provides guided insights and directions for future research.
Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated CRISPR-Cas9 editing holds promise to treat many diseases. The immune response to bacterial-derived Cas9 has been speculated as a hurdle for AAV-CRISPR therapy. ...However, immunological consequences of AAV-mediated Cas9 expression have thus far not been thoroughly investigated in large mammals. We evaluate Cas9-specific immune responses in canine models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) following intramuscular and intravenous AAV-CRISPR therapy. Treatment results initially in robust dystrophin restoration in affected dogs but also induces muscle inflammation, and Cas9-specific humoral and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses that are not prevented by the muscle-specific promoter and transient prednisolone immune suppression. In normal dogs, AAV-mediated Cas9 expression induces similar, though milder, immune responses. In contrast, other therapeutic (micro-dystrophin and SERCA2a) and reporter (alkaline phosphatase, AP) vectors result in persistent expression without inducing muscle inflammation. Our results suggest Cas9 immunity may represent a critical barrier for AAV-CRISPR therapy in large mammals.
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