Applying system dynamics to model advanced persistent threats

© 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. System dynamics (SD) concept has been successfully applied to analyze issues that are non-linear, complex, and dynamic in disciplines namely social sciences and technology. However, its application to cyber security issues especially threats that involves multiple variables interacting with the technical as well as the organizational domain is lacking. In this respect, Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is regarded as a highly targeted and sophisticated attack using zero-day malware, stealth, and multiple advanced techniques to gain entry and maintain its presence inside organizational network unnoticed. Being a threat that exploits technical as well as organizational vulnerabilities, preventing it at the security perimeter and, detecting it once it enters the system is a challenge till date. To demonstrate the application of SD in identifying and analyzing the effect of each of the variables, we took the Equinox data breach as a case study. The variables leading to the breach were identified, entered into Vensim software and simulated to get the results. Through this exercise, we could identify seven key independent management variables for the technical security and three key independent variables for records breach. This research being the foremost study to apply SD to APT, we presume that by modelling APT attacks using SD through a case study this paper, thus provides insights into the dynamics of the threat. Furthermore, it suggests \u27what if\u27 strategies to minimize APT risks thereby reduce the extent of damages should an APT attack occur

The 8 bits 100 MS/s Pipeline ADC for the INNOTEP Project – TWEPP-09

This paper describes the Analog to Digital Converter developed for the front end electronic of the IN2P3 INNOTEP project by the “pole microelectronique Rhone-Auvergne”. (Collaboration between LPC Clermont-Ferrand and IPNL Lyon). This ADC is a 4 stages 2.5 bits per stage pipe line with open loops track and holds and amplifiers. It runs at 100MSamples/s and has 8 bits resolution. The stages used two lines, the gain line and the comparison line, with most operators running in current. The main idea of this current line is to make a first step toward an all in current structure. Currently, this ADC is designed with a 0,35μm SiGe technology

Global alignment of protein-protein interaction networks by graph matching methods

Aligning protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks of different species has drawn a considerable interest recently. This problem is important to investigate evolutionary conserved pathways or protein complexes across species, and to help in the identification of functional orthologs through the detection of conserved interactions. It is however a difficult combinatorial problem, for which only heuristic methods have been proposed so far. We reformulate the PPI alignment as a graph matching problem, and investigate how state-of-the-art graph matching algorithms can be used for that purpose. We differentiate between two alignment problems, depending on whether strict constraints on protein matches are given, based on sequence similarity, or whether the goal is instead to find an optimal compromise between sequence similarity and interaction conservation in the alignment. We propose new methods for both cases, and assess their performance on the alignment of the yeast and fly PPI networks. The new methods consistently outperform state-of-the-art algorithms, retrieving in particular 78% more conserved interactions than IsoRank for a given level of sequence similarity. Availability:http://cbio.ensmp.fr/proj/graphm\_ppi/, additional data and codes are available upon request. Contact: [email protected]: Preprint versio

Experimental toolbox for quantitative evaluation of clathrin-mediated endocytosis in the plant model Arabidopsis

Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) is a crucial cellular process implicated in many aspects of plant growth, development, intra- and inter-cellular signaling, nutrient uptake and pathogen defense. Despite these significant roles, little is known about the precise molecular details of how it functions in planta. In order to facilitate the direct quantitative study of plant CME, here we review current routinely used methods and present refined, standardized quantitative imaging protocols which allow the detailed characterization of CME at multiple scales in plant tissues. These include: (i) an efficient electron microscopy protocol for the imaging of Arabidopsis CME vesicles in situ, thus providing a method for the detailed characterization of the ultra-structure of clathrin-coated vesicles; (ii) a detailed protocol and analysis for quantitative live-cell fluorescence microscopy to precisely examine the temporal interplay of endocytosis components during single CME events; (iii) a semi-automated analysis to allow the quantitative characterization of global internalization of cargos in whole plant tissues; and (iv) an overview and validation of useful genetic and pharmacological tools to interrogate the molecular mechanisms and function of CME in intact plant samples

Engineered Nanomaterials and Human Health: Part 2. Applications and Nanotoxicology (IUPAC Technical Report) (Review)

Research on engineered nanomaterials (ENM) has progressed rapidly from the very early stages of studying their unique, size-dependent physicochemical properties and commercial exploration to the development of products that influence our everyday lives. We have previously reviewed various methods for synthesis, surface functionalization, and analytical characterization of ENM in a publication titled \u27Engineered Nanomaterials: Preparation, Functionalization and Characterization\u27. In this second, inter-linked document, we first provide an overview of important applications of ENM in products relevant to human healthcare and consumer goods, such as food, textiles, and cosmetics. We then highlight the challenges for the design and development of new ENM for bio-applications, particularly in the rapidly developing nanomedicine sector. The second part of this document is dedicated to nanotoxicology studies of ENM in consumer products. We describe the various biological targets where toxicity may occur, summarize the four nanotoxicology principles, and discuss the need for careful consideration of the biodistribution, degradation, and elimination routes of nanosized materials before they can be safely used. Finally, we review expert opinions on the risk, regulation, and ethical aspects of using engineered nanomaterials in applications that may have direct or indirect impact on human health or our environment

Contribution of HEP electronics techniques to the medical imaging field

présenté par P.-E. Vert, proceedings sous forme de CD Imagerie Médical

SIRENE: Supervised Inference of Regulatory Networks

Living cells are the product of gene expression programs that involve the regulated transcription of thousands of genes. The elucidation of transcriptional regulatory networks in thus needed to understand the cell's working mechanism, and can for example be useful for the discovery of novel therapeutic targets. Although several methods have been proposed to infer gene regulatory networks from gene expression data, a recent comparison on a large-scale benchmark experiment revealed that most current methods only predict a limited number of known regulations at a reasonable precision level. We propose SIRENE, a new method for the inference of gene regulatory networks from a compendium of expression data. The method decomposes the problem of gene regulatory network inference into a large number of local binary classification problems, that focus on separating target genes from non-targets for each TF. SIRENE is thus conceptually simple and computationally efficient. We test it on a benchmark experiment aimed at predicting regulations in E. coli, and show that it retrieves of the order of 6 times more known regulations than other state-of-the-art inference methods

GaAs on Si epitaxy by aspect ratio trapping: analysis and reduction of defects propagating along the trench direction

The Aspect Ratio Trapping technique has been extensively evaluated for improving the quality of III-V heteroepitaxial films grown on Si, due to the potential for terminating defects at the sidewalls of SiO2 patterned trenches that enclose the growth region. However, defects propagating along the trench direction cannot be effectively confined with this technique. We studied the effect of the trench bottom geometry on the density of defects of GaAs fins, grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on 300 mm Si (001) wafers inside narrow (<90 nm wide) trenches. Plan view and cross sectional Scanning Electron Microscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy, together with High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction, were used to evaluate the crystal quality of GaAs. The prevalent defects that reach the top surface of GaAs fins are {111} twin planes propagating along the trench direction. The lowest density of twin planes, 8 108 cm 2, was achieved on “V” shaped bottom trenches, where GaAs nucleation occurs only on {111} Si planes, minimizing the interfacial energy and preventing the formation of antiphase boundaries