U.S. Energy Sector Cybersecurity: Hands-Off Approach or Effective Partnership?

Recent reporting has identified significant threats to the U.S. energy’s critical infrastructure from nation states and other groups through cyberspace. Efforts to improve the security and resilience of U.S. energy infrastructure relies upon voluntary partnerships between the U.S. Government and public and private energy infrastructure owners. This paper examines ideal Public-Private Partnership (PPP) characteristics and compares them to an actual PPP in the U.S. The results identify strengths of and challenges to efforts to secure U.S. energy infrastructure. The research was conducted through a combination of literature reviews and interviews with a sample of U.S-government and private-energy infrastructure representatives

Paradigm Shift in Sensorimotor Control Research and Brain Machine Interface Control: The Influence of Context on Sensorimotor Representations

Neural activity in the primary motor cortex (M1) is known to correlate with movement related variables including kinematics and dynamics. Our recent work, which we believe is part of a paradigm shift in sensorimotor research, has shown that in addition to these movement related variables, activity in M1 and the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) are also modulated by context, such as value, during both active movement and movement observation. Here we expand on the investigation of reward modulation in M1, showing that reward level changes the neural tuning function of M1 units to both kinematic as well as dynamic related variables. In addition, we show that this reward-modulated activity is present during brain machine interface (BMI) control. We suggest that by taking into account these context dependencies of M1 modulation, we can produce more robust BMIs. Toward this goal, we demonstrate that we can classify reward expectation from M1 on a movement-by-movement basis under BMI control and use this to gate multiple linear BMI decoders toward improved offline performance. These findings demonstrate that it is possible and meaningful to design a more accurate BMI decoder that takes reward and context into consideration. Our next step in this development will be to incorporate this gating system, or a continuous variant of it, into online BMI performance

Caractérisation et évaluation agroécologique de systèmes de culture agroforestiers : une démarche appliquée aux systèmes de culture à base de cocotiers (Cocos nucifera L.) sur l'île de Malo, Vanuatu

Coconut palms play a major role in the culture and economy of Pacific islands. The extension of coconut plantations, which currently occupy the majority of the arable land, has gradually changed the traditional cropping systems of the Northern Island of Vanuatu. With a growing population and a downward trend in copra market prices, farmers and extension services are now looking how to improve the profitability and sustainability of the cropping systems. The length of the coconut biological cycle and the diversity of intercrops in farmers' plots raise specific difficulties for characterising and evaluating coconut-based cropping systems. The aim of this study was to propose an approach for characterising and evaluating the agroecological performance of such systems. The approach focused on Malo Island (Vanuatu: 167°10'S, 15°40'E), highlighting a typical context of smallholder copra production. Coconut-based cropping systems and their temporal dynamics were identified using the diversity of situations existing in smallholder plots in the study area. The diverse situations were described and classified according the structure of the vegetation in the plots. They were then considered on a temporal basis in relation to coconut palm development. Five coconutbased cropping systems were characterised, along with their key situations. Once the systems had been characterised, a plot network was established that was representative of coconut palm development in different systems. An agroecological evaluation of the coconut-based cropping systems was then carried out based on this plot network, applying a “space for time substitution”. The agroecological evaluation corresponded to an evaluation o f the production and biophysical limiting factors of those systems. The different uses of the species identified in smallholder plots were characterised and production in the plot was quantified as the production of the different types of species in the plot (coconut palms, food species, fruit trees, etc.). The dynamics of light transmission, soil occupation by palm root systems and soil organic content were evaluated in the coconut-based cropping systems due to their biophysical relevance in agroforestry systems. Specific tools (indicators of production and simulations of light transmission and coconut palm root development using 3D models) were developed for the agroecological evaluation of these systems. The agroecological sustainability of coconut-based cropping systems was ultimately considered on a plot scale according to the performance and biophysical functioning of these systems. Proposals are made for their development. (Résumé d'auteur

Congenital absence of the external carotid artery: Atherosclerosis without a bifurcation

AbstractWe report the case of a patient with congenital absence of the external carotid artery in whom we performed a carotid endarterectomy. The radiographic features and operative findings are presented. Four similar cases previously reported in the literature are reviewed. A comment on the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis at the carotid bulb in the absence of a bifurcation and a brief discussion on the possible embryologic explanation of this anomaly are discussed. (J Vasc Surg 2002;35:573-5.