Acquisition Issues in Cybersecurity

Government cybersecurity organizations have faced unique challenges in the last decade. With the release of Executive Order 13636 in 2013, an otherwise amorphous domain of warfare matured quickly and began to take shape in the areas of information sharing, industry relations, and various areas of management. This study seeks to fill a gap that currently exists in scholarly research in the areas of acquisition and program management in cybersecurity. Using the innovative e-Delphi electronic method to collect qualitative and quantitative data from experts, this study explores the contractual complexity, intellectual property, and risk management aspects of the U.S. Government and industry relationship in cybersecurity organizations.

Network Structure of Swollen Iodine-Doped Poly (Vinyl Alcohol) Amorphous Domain as Characterized by Low Field NMR

The network structure in the amorphous domain of swollen iodine-doped poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) were systematically investigated by low-field (LF) NMR techniques to reveal the PVA-iodine complex formation mechanism. Three...

Recombinant Cloning of Gene Sequence Encoding Silk Fibroin Heavy Chain

A block combination genes (gx16-f) was designed and cloned for encoding GX16-F, which was derived from the crystalline domain (X: A, S, V or Y, GA: GAGAGA, GS: GAGAGS, GV: GAGAGV and GY: GAGAGY) and the amorphous domain (F=SGFGPVANGGSGEASSESDFGSSGFGPVANASSGEASSESDFAG) of Bombyx mori silk fibroin heavy chain. The combination genes were then cloned into a GST-tagged prokaryotic expression vector for expression of protein. Agarose gel electrophoresis analysis and DNA sequencing demonstrated that the combination gene encoding GX16-F was accurately cloned, and inserted into the expression vector successfully. The study would provide a technology to produce different structural polypeptides for studying the structurefunction relationships of silk fibroin.

The refocused discrimination induced by variable amplitude minipulses (DIVAM) experiment — Improved domain selection in semicrystalline fluoropolymers by 19F solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

The discrimination induced by variable amplitude minipulses (DIVAM) filter can be tuned to select for signals from a particular domain, therefore it is possible to obtain signals specific to different domains using only one experiment. An early description of the DIVAM sequence, where the filter terminates with cross-polarization, explains this tune ability using a simple one-spin-relaxation model, thereby limiting the selection mechanism to incoherent processes. Recently, a more complete description of the selection behaviour was offered for the DIVAM filter, when it was directly applied to the observed nucleus (direct DIVAM), taking into account both the incoherent and coherent terms. Direct DIVAM experiments on poly(vinylidenefluoride) (PVDF) show significant phase distortions when large excitation angles were used. The signal from the amorphous domain is seen to nutate in a normal fashion with respect to the excitation angle, while those from the crystalline and defect units did not. The refocused DIVAM sequence is introduced to restore normal nutation for all signals. The selection behaviour is investigated using SIMPSON (simulation program for solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy) simulations. These illustrate that the isotropic shift terms have been effectively removed and the dipolar term attenuated, such that the chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) leads to domain selection; however, in a different manner than seen in direct DIVAM. Therefore, this sequence provides a method to select on the basis of the CSA term in the presence of both strong dipolar couplings and a large range of isotropic shifts.

Long period analysis in blends of high-density and lowdensity polyethylene

Long period calculations from small angle X-ray scattering experiments (SAXS) is a well-known way to describe biphasic polymeric systems. In the case of semi-crystalline homopolymers, more and more sophisticated models have been proposed to account for the SAXS intensity profiles. However, they use too many parameters to be applied to systems including two crystalline phases and an amorphous phase. Therefore, we propose a crude alternative, based on a generalization of the old paracrystalline Hoseman model, in order to consider the case of blends of high-density (HDPE) and low-density (LDPE) polyethylene. The crystalline lamella thickness distribution function is taken as the sum of two Gaussians (bimodal function 2G). As far as the amorphous domain thickness distribution function is concerned, either an exponential distribution (E) or a Gaussian distribution (G) is used. The model 2G/G proves to be much more realistic than the model 2G/E, with respect to the long period evolution as a function of HDPE/LDPE blend composition.

Direct Observation of Single Displacement Cascade in Pyrochlore by Tv-Rate In-Situ TEM and Ex-Situ HRTEM

The ion irradiation-induced crystalline-to-amorphous transformation has been studied in many complex ceramics. Direct impact amorphization has been considered to be one of the fundamental amorphization mechanisms for complex ceramics under heavy ion irradiation . Based on the directimpact model, a highly energetic incident ion transfers its kinetic energy to the target as a thermal spike within 10“13 sec creating a “molten-like” displacement cascade, typically nanometer-scaled in diameter (as indicated by the result of a computer simulation in Fig. 1). This “molten” zone quickly quenches to a small amorphous domain within a few pico-seconds. Epitaxial recrystallization occurs around the amorphous/crystalline interface, so that the size of amorphous domains decrease with time. The accumulation and overlap of small amorphous domains eventually leads to complete amorphization of the irradiated material. Although the in-situTEM technique with the setup shown in Fig. 2 has been extensively applied to the study of the amorphization process in complex ceramics, most of the previous studies relied on in-situobservation of the electron diffraction pattern, and there has been a lack of solid evidence of direct impact amorphization due to the small nature of the cascades and the rapid kinetics of its evolution.