University of North Carolina at Charlotte

About: University of North Carolina at Charlotte is a education organization based out in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 8772 authors who have published 22239 publications receiving 562529 citations. The organization is also known as: UNC Charlotte & UNCC.

Do Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us From Terrorism

Abstract: This study empirically tests what has become a central component of US anti-terrorism policy under the Bush administration: that terrorism is a byproduct of illiberal political and economic systems. Employing a series of statistical analyses on incidents of terrorism in 153 countries from 1986 to 2003, the author finds that variables measuring democracy and degree of economic openness are not significant predictors of terrorism. However, the study does find that experience of state failures is significant, thus providing empirical backing for a small, descriptive body of scholarship linking failed states to terrorism.

State Definitions for the Gifted and Talented Revisited

Abstract: Definitions of gifted and talented students have been in a state of evolution for some time. Many states rely on the federal interpretation as a guideline for establishing their definitions relating to gifted education. However, the federal definition has gone through a series of metamorphoses with the addition and deletion of various terms and components. This article presents a brief history of the transition of the federal definition for students who are gifted and talented, as well as a description of other definitions that have impacted state definitions. An overview of state definitions in 1990 and 1998 is also presented and analyzed.

Redox properties of metalloporphyrin excited states, lifetimes, and related properties of a series of para-substituted tetraphenylporphine carbonyl complexes of ruthenium(II)

Abstract: Excited-state and redox properties of Ru(p-XTPP)(CO), X = MeO, Me, H, F, Cl, H and Br, have been defined. Emission bands were centered at 730 ± 3 nm and excited-state lifetimes were in the range of 30 ± 10 μ$. Two one-electron oxidations in CH2C12 ranged from 0.74 to 0.86 V for the first step and from 1.18 to 1.27 V for the second one. A one-electron reduction process in (CH3)2SO ranged from -1.35 to -1.24 V. Excited-state lifetimes and redox potentials exhibit a weak dependence on the Hammett function. In general, redox potentials increase as the electron-withdrawing power of the substituents increases, whereas excited-state lifetimes decrease. The first oxidation step (0.74-0.86 V) and the reduction step are, respectively, assigned to -electron removal or acceptance by the porphyrin ring. The second oxidation is assigned to removal of an electron from the ruthenium(II) center. The excited state is shown to be the ( *) state of the porphyrin ring and to exhibit photoredox behavior involving both oxidative and reductive quenching. Redox product separation occurred in flash photolysis quenching experiments and back-reactions took place at near-diffusion-controlled rates. The redox potential of the Ru(TPP)(CO)+/* couple was estimated from emission and redox data to be -0.57 ± 0.03 V; it was determined from oxidative quenching studies to be -0.56 ± 0.10 V. Comparison to the excited-state properties of Ru(bpy)32+ is made, and the utility of porphyrin complexes as potential solar energy storage catalysts is examined.

Olfactory stimuli as context cues in human memory.

Abstract: Olfactory stimuli were used as context cues in a recognition memory paradigm. Male college students were exposed to 50 slides of the faces of college females while in the presence of a pleasant or an unpleasant odor. During the acquisition phase, ratings of physical attractiveness of the slides were collected. After a 48-hr delay, a recognition test was given using the original 50 slides and 50 new slides. The recognition test was conducted with either the original odor or the alternative odor present. A no-odor control group did not receive olfactory cues. The attractiveness ratings indicated that the odor variations had no effect on these social judgments. Analyses of d' scores, hits, and false alarms for the recognition performance indicated support for the predicted interaction in which presence of the same odor at both sessions led to better overall performance.

Achieving Differential Privacy of Data Disclosure in the Smart Grid

Abstract: The smart grid introduces new privacy implications to individuals and their family due to the fine-grained usage data collection. For example, smart metering data could reveal highly accurate real-time home appliance energy load, which may be used to infer the human activities inside the houses. One effective way to hide actual appliance loads from the outsiders is Battery-based Load Hiding (BLH), in which a battery is installed for each household and smartly controlled to store and supply power to the appliances. Even though such technique has been demonstrated useful and can prevent certain types of attacks, none of existing BLH works can provide probably privacy-preserving mechanisms. In this paper, we investigate the privacy of smart meters via differential privacy. We first analyze the current existing BLH methods and show that they cannot guarantee differential privacy in the BLH problem. We then propose a novel randomized BLH algorithm which successfully assures differential privacy, and further propose the Multitasking-BLH-Exp3 algorithm which adaptively updates the BLH algorithm based on the context and the constraints. Results from extensive simulations show the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method over existing BLH methods. Index Terms—Smart Grid, Smart Meter, Privacy, Differential Privacy, Data Disclosure