Neutron Measurements at the Lunar Surface (NMLS)

The Neutron Measurement System (NMS-Lunar) is an instrument payload manifested on Astrobotics Peregrine Mission One (M1). Astrobotic Mission One will land at Lacus Mortis (~44oN, 254oE). Astrobotic will fly up to fourteen NASA payloads to the lunar surface in addition to other payload customers on M1. NMS-Lunar is a re-design of the MSFC Fast Neutron Spectrometer (FNS) currently operating on the ISS. The design of NMS-Lunar enables operation on the lunar surface, integration onto the Peregrine lander, and measurement of thermal neutron count rates on the lunar surface. The primary science objectives for NMS-Lunar is to provide ground truth of mapped neutron data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Prospector missions. Neutrons are created when galactic cosmic rays interact with the lunar regolith, and can provide valuable elemental composition information

Tracking Users across the Web via TLS Session Resumption

User tracking on the Internet can come in various forms, e.g., via cookies or by fingerprinting web browsers. A technique that got less attention so far is user tracking based on TLS and specifically based on the TLS session resumption mechanism. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first that investigate the applicability of TLS session resumption for user tracking. For that, we evaluated the configuration of 48 popular browsers and one million of the most popular websites. Moreover, we present a so-called prolongation attack, which allows extending the tracking period beyond the lifetime of the session resumption mechanism. To show that under the observed browser configurations tracking via TLS session resumptions is feasible, we also looked into DNS data to understand the longest consecutive tracking period for a user by a particular website. Our results indicate that with the standard setting of the session resumption lifetime in many current browsers, the average user can be tracked for up to eight days. With a session resumption lifetime of seven days, as recommended upper limit in the draft for TLS version 1.3, 65% of all users in our dataset can be tracked permanently.Comment: 11 page

CD24 Expression and differential resistance to chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer.

Breast cancer (BC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death in women. Adjuvant systemic chemotherapies are effective in reducing risks of recurrence and have contributed to reduced BC mortality. Although targeted adjuvant treatments determined by biomarkers for endocrine and HER2-directed therapies are largely successful, predicting clinical benefit from chemotherapy is more challenging. Drug resistance is a major reason for treatment failures. Efforts are ongoing to find biomarkers to select patients most likely to benefit from chemotherapy. Importantly, cell surface biomarkers CD44+/CD24- are linked to drug resistance in some reports, yet underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. This study focused on the potential role of CD24 expression in resistance to either docetaxel or doxorubicin in part by the use of triple-negative BC (TNBC) tissue microarrays. In vitro assays were also done to assess changes in CD24 expression and differential drug susceptibility after chemotherapy. Further, mouse tumor xenograft studies were done to confirm in vitro findings. Overall, the results show that patients with CD24-positive TNBC had significantly worse overall survival and disease-free survival after taxane-based treatment. Also, in vitro cell studies show that CD44+/CD24+/high cells are more resistant to docetaxel, while CD44+/CD24-/low cells are resistant to doxorubicin. Both in vitro and in vivo studies show that cells with CD24-knockdown are more sensitive to docetaxel, while CD24-overexpressing cells are more sensitive to doxorubicin. Further, mechanistic studies indicate that Bcl-2 and TGF-βR1 signaling via ATM-NDRG2 pathways regulate CD24. Hence, CD24 may be a biomarker to select chemotherapeutics and a target to overcome TNBC drug resistance

Investigation into the security and privacy of iOS VPN applications

Due to the increasing number of recommendations for people to use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to protect their privacy, more application developers are creating VPN applications and publishing them on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. In this ‘gold rush’, applications are being developed quickly and, in turn, not being developed with security in mind.This paper investigated a selection of VPN applications available on the Apple App Store (for iOS devices) and tested the applications for security and privacy issues. This includes testing for any traffic being transmitted over plain HTTP, DNS leakage and transmission of personally identifiable information (such as phone number, International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), email address, MAC address) and evaluating the security of the tunneling protocol used by the VPN.The testing methodology involved installing VPN applications on a test device, simulating network traffic for a pre-defined period of time and capturing the traffic. This allows for all traffic to be analysed to check for anything being sent without encryption. Other issues that often cause de-anonymization with VPN applications such as DNS leakage were also considered.The research found several common security issues with VPN applications tested, with a large majority of applications still using HTTP and not HTTPS for transmitting certain data. A large majority of the VPN applications failed to route additional user data (such as DNS queries) through the VPN tunnel. Furthermore, just fifteen of the tested applications were found to have correctly implemented the best-recommended tunneling protocol for user security.Outside of the regular testing criteria, other security anomalies were observed with specific applications, which included outdated servers with known vulnerabilities, applications giving themselves the ability to perform HTTPS interception and questionable privacy policies. From the documented vulnerabilities, this research proposes a set of recommendations for developers to consider when developing VPN applications

Producing the docile body: analysing Local Area Under-performance Inspection (LAUI)

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of the Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED), declared a 'new wave' of Local Area Under-performance Inspections (LAUI) of schools 'denying children the standard of education they deserve'. This paper examines how the threat of LAUI played out over three mathematics lessons taught by a teacher in her first year in the profession. A Foucauldian approach is mobilised with regard to disciplinary power and 'docile bodies'. The paper argues that, in the case in point, LAUI was a tool mediating performative conditions and, ultimately, the docile body. The paper will be of concern to policy sociologists, teachers, school leaders, and those interested in school inspection

Rethinking professional practice: the logic of competition and the crisis of identity in housing practice

The relationship between professionalism, education and housing practice has become increasingly strained following the introduction of austerity measures and welfare reforms across a range of countries. Focusing on the development of UK housing practice, this article considers how notions of professionalism are being reshaped within the context of welfare retrenchment and how emerging tensions have both affected the identity of housing professionals and impacted on the delivery of training and education programmes. The article analyses the changing knowledge and skills valued in contemporary housing practice and considers how the sector has responded to the challenges of austerity. The central argument is that a dominant logic of competition has culminated in a crisis of identity for the sector. Although the focus of the article is on UK housing practice, the processes identified have a wider relevance for the analysis of housing and welfare delivery in developed economies

Highly polymorphic microsatellites in the North American snakeweed grasshopper, Hesperotettix viridis

Microsatellite markers are preferred for fine-scale population genetic studies requiring high resolution. The grasshopper Hesperotettix viridis (Thomas) is an oligophagous species that feeds on composites and often exhibits locally restricted diets. Divergence in host plant use in some localities is seen where co-occurring subpopulations select alternate plant species, as expected with the evolution of host shifts and associated lineage divergence. To characterize the host-associated divergence patterns among populations of H. viridis, we developed markers from two microsatellite-enriched genomic libraries. Here we report the characterization and optimization of seven polymorphic di- and tri-nucleotide microsatellite loci for this species. One hundred and six individuals from 5 populations were tested for polymorphism. The number of alleles varied from 4 to 38 in all the populations. Ho ranged from 0.339 to 0.790. Homozygote excess was observed across loci, perhaps due to inbreeding. This is the first report of microsatellite markers for the subfamily Melanoplinae