A Community Based Office Automation Center for Women: Intellectual Property Based Organizational Setting No. 2

The impact of information technology on society may be observed in process in the radical changes that are taking place in today's office. This impact will perhaps affect women more radically than the invention of the typewriter itself. The paper develops an organizational setting built in the managerial principle of intellectual property, the values of community and the need to provide an educational and training environment that helps women more naturally deal with this impact

A New Computing Laboratory to Evaluate and Test Hardware, Software and Systems: Intellectual Property Based Organizational Setting No. 1

The proliferation of minicomputers and the seductive nature of belief in hardware solutions to a complex problem, has led the authors to suggest the creating of a new computing laboratory (NCL). The laboratory would permit clients to seek help in the system design aspects of their problem and to test the proposed hardware/software/systems solution on a NCL workbench. The importance of a entrepreneurial management style for the enterprise is stressed

Elliptic and Hyperelliptic Curves: A Practical Security Analysis

Motivated by the advantages of using elliptic curves for discrete logarithm-based public-key cryptography, there is an active research area investigating the potential of using hyperelliptic curves of genus 2. For both types of curves, the best known algorithms to solve the discrete logarithm problem are generic attacks such as Pollard rho, for which it is well-known that the algorithm can be sped up when the target curve comes equipped with an efficiently computable automorphism. In this paper we incorporate all of the known optimizations (including those relating to the automorphism group) in order to perform a systematic security assessment of two elliptic curves and two hyperelliptic curves of genus 2. We use our software framework to give concrete estimates on the number of core years required to solve the discrete logarithm problem on four curves that target the 128-bit security level: on the standardized NIST CurveP-256, on a popular curve from the Barreto-Naehrig family, and on their respective analogues in genus 2. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

COVID-19: Rapid antigen detection for SARS-CoV-2 by lateral flow assay: A national systematic evaluation of sensitivity and specificity for mass-testing

Background Lateral flow device (LFD) viral antigen immunoassays have been developed around the world as diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 infection. They have been proposed to deliver an infrastructure-light, cost-economical solution giving results within half an hour. Methods LFDs were initially reviewed by a Department of Health and Social Care team, part of the UK government, from which 64 were selected for further evaluation from 1st August to 15th December 2020. Standardised laboratory evaluations, and for those that met the published criteria, field testing in the Falcon-C19 research study and UK pilots were performed (UK COVID-19 testing centres, hospital, schools, armed forces). Findings 4/64 LFDs so far have desirable performance characteristics (orient Gene, Deepblue, Abbott and Innova SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Qualitative Test). All these LFDs have a viral antigen detection of >90% at 100,000 RNA copies/ml. 8951 Innova LFD tests were performed with a kit failure rate of 5.6% (502/8951, 95% CI: 5.1–6.1), false positive rate of 0.32% (22/6954, 95% CI: 0.20–0.48). Viral antigen detection/sensitivity across the sampling cohort when performed by laboratory scientists was 78.8% (156/198, 95% CI 72.4–84.3). Interpretation Our results suggest LFDs have promising performance characteristics for mass population testing and can be used to identify infectious positive individuals. The Innova LFD shows good viral antigen detection/sensitivity with excellent specificity, although kit failure rates and the impact of training are potential issues. These results support the expanded evaluation of LFDs, and assessment of greater access to testing on COVID-19 transmission. Funding Department of Health and Social Care. University of Oxford. Public Health England Porton Down, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, National Institute of Health Research

Attractive subfamilies of BLS curves for implementing high-security pairings

Barreto-Lynn-Scott (BLS) curves are a stand-out candidate for implementing high-security pairings. This paper shows that particular choices of the pairing-friendly search parameter give rise to four subfami- lies of BLS curves, all of which offer highly efficient and implementation- friendly pairing instantiations. Curves from these particular subfamilies are defined over prime fields that support very efficient towering options for the full extension field. The coefficients for a specific curve and its correct twist are automat-ically determined without any computational effort. The choice of an extremely sparse search parameter is immediately reflected by a highly efficient optimal ate Miller loop and final exponentiation. As a resource for implementors, we give a list with examples of implementation-friendly BLS curves through several high-security levels

Epicardial and subcutaneous adipose tissue in Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals: Implications for cardiometabolic diseases

BACKGROUND: Obesity is prevalent in Indigenous populations who exhibit significant differences in body fat composition. While excess regional adiposity can be partially inferred from clinical measurements, noninvasive imaging allows for direct quantification of specific fat depots. Epicardial fat is a visceral adipose tissue that has been strongly associated with cardiometabolic disease in other populations. However, this ectopic fat depot has yet to be characterized in Indigenous populations. METHODS: We studied 100 individuals matched for ethnicity (Indigenous Australian and Caucasian descent), age, gender, and body mass index. Epicardial and subcutaneous adipose tissue volumes was quantified with computed tomography. Associations of ethnicity and adiposity measures were assessed using linear regression. RESULTS: Indigenous individuals had significantly greater epicardial fat volumes compared to non-Indigenous individuals (95.8±37.5 vs 54.1±27.6cm3, p<0.001). In contrast, subcutaneous fat volumes were comparable in Indigenous compared to non-Indigenous individuals (22.1±15.1 vs 20.3±13.5cm3, p=0.54). Sequential adjustment for age, gender, comorbidities, biochemical parameters, and medication use did not attenuate the association between Indigenous ethnicity and greater epicardial fat volume in multivariable models (B=43.0, p<0.001). Furthermore, this association did not materially change with the inclusion of various adiposity measures, such as body mass index, subcutaneous adipose tissue, or weight. CONCLUSIONS: Indigenous individuals have significantly greater epicardial fat, but similar subcutaneous fat volumes, compared to non-Indigenous individuals. This finding extends previous observations on body fat composition differences in these individuals, and supports the possibility that epicardial fat and other visceral adipose depots may be contributing to the greater burden of cardiovascular disease in Indigenous populations.David F. Sun … Stephen J. Nicholls …Celine Gallagher … Kurt C. Roberts-Thomson, Rajiv Mahajan, Dennis H. Lau … et al

Fast symmetric pairing revisited

During the past decade pairing-based cryptosystems have been through a huge development, and the implementation of bilinear pairings has been improved greatly. Two pairing models, namely symmetric and asymmetric pairings, are widely used and have common cryptographic properties in most cryptosystems. Symmetric pairings are more convenient to construct cryptographic schemes, but asymmetric pairings are more efficient and suitable for implementation due to their flexible embedding degrees. In this paper we revisit symmetric pairings on supersingular elliptic curves over large characteristic fields. We show that a special family of supersingular elliptic curves with embedding degree 3 admits a kind of fast symmetric pairings, whose computational costs might be twice the costs for the current fastest asymmetric pairings. &copy; 2014 Springer International Publishing.During the past decade pairing-based cryptosystems have been through a huge development, and the implementation of bilinear pairings has been improved greatly. Two pairing models, namely symmetric and asymmetric pairings, are widely used and have common cryptographic properties in most cryptosystems. Symmetric pairings are more convenient to construct cryptographic schemes, but asymmetric pairings are more efficient and suitable for implementation due to their flexible embedding degrees. In this paper we revisit symmetric pairings on supersingular elliptic curves over large characteristic fields. We show that a special family of supersingular elliptic curves with embedding degree 3 admits a kind of fast symmetric pairings, whose computational costs might be twice the costs for the current fastest asymmetric pairings. &copy; 2014 Springer International Publishing