Reproductive health services for refugees by refugees in Guinea I: family planning.

BACKGROUND: Comprehensive studies of family planning (FP) in refugee camps are relatively uncommon. This paper examines gender and age differences in family planning knowledge, attitudes, and practices among Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees living in Guinea. METHODS: In 1999, a cross-sectional survey was conducted of 889 reproductive-age men and women refugees from 48 camps served by the refugee-organised Reproductive Health Group (RHG). Sampling was multi-stage with data collected for socio-demographics, family planning, sexual health, and antenatal care. Statistics were calculated for selected indicators. RESULTS: Women knew more about FP, although men's education reduced this difference. RHG facilitators were the primary source of reproductive health information for all respondents. However, more men then women obtained information from non-health sources, such as friends and media. Approval of FP was high, significantly higher in women than in men (90% vs. 70%). However, more than 40% reported not having discussed FP with their partner. Perceived service quality was an important determinant in choosing where to get contraceptives. Contraceptive use in the camps served by RHG was much higher than typical for either refugees' country of origin or the host country (17% vs. 3.9 and 4.1% respectively), but the risk of unwanted pregnancy remained considerable (69%). CONCLUSION: This refugee self-help model appeared largely effective and could be considered for reproductive health needs in similar settings. Having any formal education appeared a major determinant of FP knowledge for men, while this was less noticeable for women. Thus, FP communication strategies for refugees should consider gender-specific messages and channels

A Lightweight Implementation of NTRUEncrypt for 8-bit AVR Microcontrollers

Introduced in 1996, NTRUEncrypt is not only one of the earliest but also one of the most scrutinized lattice-based cryptosystems and a serious contender in NIST’s ongoing Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standardization project. An important criterion for the assessment of candidates is their computational cost in various hardware and software environments. This paper contributes to the evaluation of NTRUEncrypt on the ATmega class of AVR microcontrollers, which belongs to the most popular 8-bit platforms in the embedded domain. More concretely, we present AvrNtru, a carefully-optimized implementation of NTRUEncrypt that we developed from scratch with the goal of achieving high performance and resistance to timing attacks. AvrNtru complies with version 3.3 of the EESS#1 specification and supports recent product-form parameter sets like ees443ep1, ees587ep1, and ees743ep1. A full encryption operation (including mask generation and blinding- polynomial generation) using the ees443ep1 parameters takes 834,272 clock cycles on an ATmega1281 microcontroller; the decryption is slightly more costly and has an execution time of 1,061,683 cycles. When choosing the ees743ep1 parameters to achieve a 256-bit security level, 1,539,829 clock cycles are cost for encryption and 2,103,228 clock cycles for decryption. We achieved these results thanks to a novel hybrid technique for multiplication in truncated polynomial rings where one of the operands is a sparse ternary polynomial in product form. Our hybrid technique is inspired by Gura et al’s hybrid method for multiple-precision integer multiplication (CHES 2004) and takes advantage of the large register file of the AVR architecture to minimize the number of load instructions. A constant-time multiplication in the ring specified by the ees443ep1 parameters requires only 210,827 cycles, which sets a new speed record for the arithmetic component of a lattice-based cryptosystem on an 8-bit microcontroller

Conversion and Proselytisation in Southern Ethiopia. A Historical and Comparative Perspective

Ethiopia is a very exciting and fruitful setting for the study of conversion and proselytisation. The three major religious traditions are represented and have had many instances of conversions from one tradition to the other: Traditional African religion, Islam and Christianity – the last with many different branches. We also have the possibilities of studying the phenomenon over a longer time-span than in any other part of sub-Saharan Africa. This gives us excellent opportunities for a hist..

New Standards for E-Voting Systems: Reflections on Source Code Examinations

There is a difference between a system having no known attacks and the system being secure---as cryptographers know all too well. Once we begin talking about the implementations of systems this issue becomes even more prominent since the amount of material which needs to be scrutinised skyrockets. Historically, lack of transparency and low standards for e-voting system implementations have resulted in a culture where open source code is seen as a gold standard; however, this ignores the issue of the comprehensibility of that code. In this work we make concrete empirical recommendations based on our, and others, experiences and findings from examining the source code of e-voting systems. We highlight that any solution used for significant elections should be well designed, carefully analysed, deftly built, accurately documented and expertly maintained. Until e-voting system implementations are clear, comprehensible, and open to public scrutiny security standards are unlikely to improve

A Lightweight Implementation of NTRU Prime for the Post-Quantum Internet of Things

The dawning era of quantum computing has initiated various initiatives for the standardization of post-quantum cryptosystems with the goal of (eventually) replacing RSA and ECC. NTRU Prime is a variant of the classical NTRU cryptosystem that comes with a couple of tweaks to minimize the attack surface; most notably, it avoids rings with "worrisome" structure. This paper presents, to our knowledge, the first assembler-optimized implementation of Streamlined NTRU Prime for an 8-bit AVR microcontroller and shows that high-security lattice-based cryptography is feasible for small IoT devices. An encapsulation operation using parameters for 128-bit post-quantum security requires 8.2 million clock cycles when executed on an 8-bit ATmega1284 microcontroller. The decapsulation is approximately twice as costly and has an execution time of 15.6 million cycles. We achieved this performance through (i) new low-level software optimization techniques to accelerate Karatsuba-based polynomial multiplication on the 8-bit AVR platform and (ii) an efficient implementation of the coefficient modular reduction written in assembly language. The execution time of encapsulation and decapsulation is independent of secret data, which makes our software resistant against timing attacks. Finally, we assess the performance one could theoretically gain by using a so-called product-form polynomial as part of the secret key and discuss potential security implications

HIV knowledge, risk perception and avoidant behaviour change among Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea.

A common assumption underpinning health communications design in humanitarian settings is that increasing knowledge and risk perception will lead to appropriate behaviour change. This study compares associations of HIV knowledge and perceived risk with reported HIV-avoidant behaviour changes and sexual health choices from a community survey of 698 sexually experienced male and female Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea. HIV knowledge was not significantly associated with reported HIV-avoidant changes (OR 1.25; adjusted for gender; 95%CI 0.76-2.04), while perceived HIV risk was negatively associated (OR 0.38, adjusted for age at sexual debut; 95%CI 0.22-0.66). Trying to conceive was the main reason reported for not using condoms or other contraception (28%; 138/498), followed by current pregnancy/lactation (19%; 93/498). Results suggest contextual factors (e.g. desire for children) can be as important as knowledge and risk-perception, and HIV prevention initiatives in stable and chronic humanitarian settings should account for these

A Survey of Requirements for COVID-19 Mitigation Strategies. Part I: Newspaper Clips

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced virtually all aspects of our lives. Across the world, countries have applied various mitigation strategies for the epidemic, based on social, political, and technological instruments. We postulate that one should {identify the relevant requirements} before committing to a particular mitigation strategy. One way to achieve it is through an overview of what is considered relevant by the general public, and referred to in the media. To this end, we have collected a number of news clips that mention the possible goals and requirements for a mitigation strategy. The snippets are sorted thematically into several categories, such as health-related goals, social and political impact, civil rights, ethical requirements, and so on. In a forthcoming companion paper, we will present a digest of the requirements, derived from the news clips, and a preliminary take on their formal specification

Reproductive health for refugees by refugees in Guinea IV: Peer education and HIV knowledge, attitudes, and reported practices

BACKGROUND: Both conflict and HIV affect sub-Saharan Africa, and supportive approaches for HIV prevention among refugees are crucial. Peer education has been associated with improved HIV outcomes, though relatively little research has been published on refugee settings. The primary objective of this study was to assess whether exposure to refugee peer education was associated with improved HIV knowledge, attitudes, or practice outcomes among refugees in Guinea. Secondary objectives were to assess whether gender, age, or formal education were more strongly associated than peer education with improved HIV outcomes. METHODS: Data was collected by cross-sectional survey from 889 reproductive-age men and women in 23 camps in the Forest Region of Guinea. Selected exposures (i.e. peer education, gender, formal education, age) were analysed for associations with HIV outcomes using logistic regression odds ratios (OR). RESULTS: Most participants (88%) had heard of HIV, particularly those exposed to peer or formal education. Most correctly identified ways to protect themselves, while maintaining misconceptions about HIV transmission. Women and those exposed to either peer or formal education had significantly fewer misconceptions. Half of participants considered themselves at risk of HIV, women with 52% higher odds than men (adjusted OR 1.52, 95%CI 1.01-2.29). Participants exposed to peer education had more than twice the odds of reporting having made HIV-avoidant behavioural changes than unexposed participants (72% versus 58%; adjusted OR 2.49, 95%CI 1.52-4.08). While women had 57% lower odds than men of reporting HIV-avoidant behavioural changes (OR 0.43, 95%CI 0.31-0.60), women exposed to peer education had greater odds than exposed men of reporting HIV-avoidant changes (OR 2.70 versus OR 1.95). Staying faithful (66%) was the most frequent behavioural change reported. CONCLUSIONS: Peer education was most strongly associated with reported HIV-avoidant behaviour change. Gender was most associated with HIV knowledge and risk perception. Refugee women had fewer misconceptions than men had, but were more likely to report HIV risk and less likely to report making behavioural changes. Peer education appears promising for HIV interventions in chronic-emergency settings, if gender disparities and related barriers to condom usage are also addressed