Supporting security-oriented, collaborative nanoCMOS electronics research

Grid technologies support collaborative e-Research typified by multiple institutions and resources seamlessly shared to tackle common research problems. The rules for collaboration and resource sharing are commonly achieved through establishment and management of virtual organizations (VOs) where policies on access and usage of resources by collaborators are defined and enforced by sites involved in the collaboration. The expression and enforcement of these rules is made through access control systems where roles/privileges are defined and associated with individuals as digitally signed attribute certificates which collaborating sites then use to authorize access to resources. Key to this approach is that the roles are assigned to the right individuals in the VO; the attribute certificates are only presented to the appropriate resources in the VO; it is transparent to the end user researchers, and finally that it is manageable for resource providers and administrators in the collaboration. In this paper, we present a security model and implementation improving the overall usability and security of resources used in Grid-based e-Research collaborations through exploitation of the Internet2 Shibboleth technology. This is explored in the context of a major new security focused project at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) at the University of Glasgow in the nanoCMOS electronics domain

CCH <i>N</i> = 4-3 emission from dense interstellar clouds

The authors have searched for N = 4 - 3 rotational line emission from the ethynyl radical CCH, at 349 GHz toward a number of galactic molecular clouds. They have detected emission from ten giant molecular clouds and have derived CCH column densities on the order of 1014 - 1015cm-2. They find that CCH emission arises from dense gas, n(H2) ~ 104 - 105cm-3, but not from very dense material, n(H2) > 106cm-3, nor from hot gas such as the "hot core" region in Orion

Integrating security solutions to support nanoCMOS electronics research

The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded Meeting the Design Challenges of nanoCMOS Electronics (nanoCMOS) is developing a research infrastructure for collaborative electronics research across multiple institutions in the UK with especially strong industrial and commercial involvement. Unlike other domains, the electronics industry is driven by the necessity of protecting the intellectual property of the data, designs and software associated with next generation electronics devices and therefore requires fine-grained security. Similarly, the project also demands seamless access to large scale high performance compute resources for atomic scale device simulations and the capability to manage the hundreds of thousands of files and the metadata associated with these simulations. Within this context, the project has explored a wide range of authentication and authorization infrastructures facilitating compute resource access and providing fine-grained security over numerous distributed file stores and files. We conclude that no single security solution meets the needs of the project. This paper describes the experiences of applying X.509-based certificates and public key infrastructures, VOMS, PERMIS, Kerberos and the Internet2 Shibboleth technologies for nanoCMOS security. We outline how we are integrating these solutions to provide a complete end-end security framework meeting the demands of the nanoCMOS electronics domain

Scalable, security-oriented solutions for nanoCMOS electronics

The EPSRC pilot project Meeting the Design Challenges of nanoCMOS Electronics (nanoCMOS – www.nanocmos.ac.uk) has been funded to tackle some of the challenges facing the semiconductor electronics industry caused by the progressive scaling of CMOS transistors. As transistor dimensions are now at the nanometer scale with 40nm MOSFETs already in mass production and sub-10 nm transistors scheduled for production by 2018, the intrinsic parameter fluctuations caused by the inherent discreteness of charge and matter at this atomistic scale are now one of the major challenges that the semiconductor electronics industry needs to address. The variability at the device level affects profoundly the circuit/system design process and hence can be regarded a semiconductor industry-wide problem. Fortunately many of the statistical variability related issues can be understood and forecasted through large scale simulation of ensembles of potentially hundreds of thousands of atomistically varying devices. However, one of the main distinguishing features of NanoCMOS when compared to other high performance computing (HPC) simulation domains is the imperative requirements on fine grained security. The data, the designs and even the simulations themselves all potentially have highly sensitive commercial intellectual property (IP) value associated with them, ranging from the IP of device manufacturers and the design houses through to licenses needed to run simulation and design software. This paper outlines the e-Infrastructure that has been developed within the nanoCMOS project with specific focus upon the security capabilities it supports and how these address the IP protection requirements of the industrial and collaborating partners. Our ultimate goal is to provide an environment that addresses security across the board and scales to meet the HPC and data management requirements of nanoCMOS research

Spatially Resolved Chemistry in Nearby Galaxies I. The Center of IC 342

We have imaged emission from the millimeter lines of eight molecules--C2H, C34S, N2H+, CH3OH, HNCO, HNC, HC3N, and SO--in the central half kpc of the nearby spiral galaxy IC 342. The 5" (~50 pc) resolution images were made with OVRO. Using these maps we obtain a picture of the chemistry within the nuclear region on the sizescales of individual GMCs. Bright emission is detected from all but SO. There are marked differences in morphology for the different molecules. A principal component analysis is performed to quantify similarities and differences among the images. This analysis reveals that while all molecules are to zeroth order correlated, that is, they are all found in dense molecular clouds, there are three distinct groups of molecules distinguished by the location of their emission within the nuclear region. N2H+, C18O, HNC and HCN are widespread and bright, good overall tracers of dense molecular gas. C2H and C34S, tracers of PDR chemistry, originate exclusively from the central 50-100 pc region, where radiation fields are high. The third group of molecules, CH3OH and HNCO, correlates well with the expected locations of bar-induced orbital shocks. The good correlation of HNCO with the established shock tracer molecule CH3OH is evidence that this molecule, whose chemistry has been uncertain, is indeed produced by processing of grains. HC3N is observed to correlate tightly with 3mm continuum emission, demonstrating that the young starbursts are the sites of the warmest and densest molecular gas. We compare our HNC images with the HCN images of Downes et al. (1992) to produce the first high resolution, extragalactic HCN/HNC map: the HNC/HCN ratio is near unity across the nucleus and the correlation of both of these gas tracers with the star formation is excellent. (Abridged).Comment: 54 pages including 10 figures and 8 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

Impacts of climate change on plant diseases – opinions and trends

There has been a remarkable scientific output on the topic of how climate change is likely to affect plant diseases in the coming decades. This review addresses the need for review of this burgeoning literature by summarizing opinions of previous reviews and trends in recent studies on the impacts of climate change on plant health. Sudden Oak Death is used as an introductory case study: Californian forests could become even more susceptible to this emerging plant disease, if spring precipitations will be accompanied by warmer temperatures, although climate shifts may also affect the current synchronicity between host cambium activity and pathogen colonization rate. A summary of observed and predicted climate changes, as well as of direct effects of climate change on pathosystems, is provided. Prediction and management of climate change effects on plant health are complicated by indirect effects and the interactions with global change drivers. Uncertainty in models of plant disease development under climate change calls for a diversity of management strategies, from more participatory approaches to interdisciplinary science. Involvement of stakeholders and scientists from outside plant pathology shows the importance of trade-offs, for example in the land-sharing vs. sparing debate. Further research is needed on climate change and plant health in mountain, boreal, Mediterranean and tropical regions, with multiple climate change factors and scenarios (including our responses to it, e.g. the assisted migration of plants), in relation to endophytes, viruses and mycorrhiza, using long-term and large-scale datasets and considering various plant disease control methods

Expanded repertoire of RASGRP2 variants responsible for platelet dysfunction and severe bleeding.

Heritable platelet function disorders (PFDs) are genetically heterogeneous and poorly characterized. Pathogenic variants in RASGRP2, which encodes calcium and diacylglycerol-regulated guanine exchange factor I (CalDAG-GEFI), have been reported previously in 3 pedigrees with bleeding and reduced platelet aggregation responses. To better define the phenotype associated with pathogenic RASGRP2 variants, we compared high-throughput sequencing and phenotype data from 2042 cases in pedigrees with unexplained bleeding or platelet disorders to data from 5422 controls. Eleven cases harbored 11 different, previously unreported RASGRP2 variants that were biallelic and likely pathogenic. The variants included 5 high-impact variants predicted to prevent CalDAG-GEFI expression and 6 missense variants affecting the CalDAG-GEFI CDC25 domain, which mediates Rap1 activation during platelet inside-out αIIbβ3 signaling. Cases with biallelic RASGRP2 variants had abnormal mucocutaneous, surgical, and dental bleeding from childhood, requiring ≥1 blood or platelet transfusion in 78% of cases. Platelets displayed reduced aggregation in response to adenosine 5'-diphosphate and epinephrine, but variable aggregation defects with other agonists. There were no other consistent clinical or laboratory features. These data enable definition of human CalDAG-GEFI deficiency as a nonsyndromic, recessive PFD associated with a moderate or severe bleeding phenotype and complex defects in platelet aggregation

The self-reported oral health status and dental attendance of smokers and non-smokers in England

Smoking has been identified as the second greatest risk factor for global death and disability and has impacts on the oral cavity from aesthetic changes to fatal diseases such as oral cancer. The paper presents a secondary analysis of the National Adult Dental Health Survey (2009). The analysis used descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses and logistic regression models to report the self-reported oral health status and dental attendance of smokers and non-smokers in England. Of the 9,657 participants, 21% reported they were currently smoking. When compared with smokers; non-smokers were more likely to report ‘good oral health’ (75% versus 57% respectively, p<0.05). Smokers were twice as likely to attend the dentist symptomatically (OR = 2.27, CI = 2.02–2.55) compared with non-smoker regardless the deprivation status. Smokers were more likely to attend symptomatically in the most deprived quintiles (OR = 1.99, CI = 1.57–2.52) and perceive they had poorer oral health (OR = 1.77, CI = 1.42–2.20). The present research is consistent with earlier sub-national research and should be considered when planning early diagnosis and management strategies for smoking-related conditions, considering the potential impact dental teams might have on smoking rates

Stem cells in ectodermal development

Tissue-specific stem cells sustain organs for a lifetime through self-renewal and generating differentiated progeny. Although tissue stem cells are established during organogenesis, the precise origin of most adult stem cells in the developing embryo is unclear. Mammalian skin is one of the best-studied epithelial systems containing stem cells to date, however the origin of most of the stem cell populations found in the adult epidermis is unknown. Here, we try to recapitulate the emergence and genesis of an ectodermal stem cell during development until the formation of an adult skin. We ask whether skin stem cells share key transcriptional regulators with their embryonic counterparts and discuss whether embryonic-like stem cells may persist through to adulthood in vivo