Defending Democracy: Taking Stock of the Global Fight Against Digital Repression, Disinformation, and Election Insecurity

Amidst the regular drumbeat of reports about Russian attempts to undermine U.S. democratic institutions from Twitter bots to cyber-attacks on Congressional candidates, it is easy to forget that the problem of election security is not isolated to the United States and extends far beyond safeguarding insecure voting machines. Consider Australia, which has long been grappling with repeated Chinese attempts to interfere with its political system. Yet Australia has taken a distinct approach in how it has sought to protect its democratic institutions, including reclassifying its political parties as “critical infrastructure,” a step that the U.S. government has yet to take despite repeated breaches at both the Democratic and Republican National Committees. This Article analyzes the Australian approach to protecting its democratic institutions from Chinese influence operations and compares it to the U.S. response to Russian efforts. It then moves on to discuss how other cyber powers, including the European Union, have taken on the fight against digital repression and disinformation, and then compares these practices to the particular vulnerabilities of Small Pacific Island Nations. Such a comparative study is vital to help build resilience, and trust, in democratic systems on both sides of the Pacific. We argue that a multifaceted approach is needed to build more resilient and sustainable democratic systems. This should encompass both targeted reforms focusing on election infrastructure security—such as requiring paper ballots and risk-limiting audits—with deeper structural interventions to limit the spread of misinformation and combat digital repression

Global Roundtable – AI and the Future of Humanity

A transformative exploration of AI\u27s impact on our future at the Global Roundtable, where industry leaders will share their insights and visions. Don\u27t miss this opportunity to gain invaluable perspectives and be part of the conversation that will define the path forward for humanity

Salamander Abundance along Road Edges and within Abandoned Logging Roads in Appalachian Forests

Roads may be one of the most common disturbances in otherwise continuous forested habitat in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Despite their obvious presence on the landscape, there is limited data on the ecological effects along a road edge or the size of the “road-effect zone.” We sampled salamanders at current and abandoned road sites within the Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina (U.S.A.) to determine the road-effect zone for an assemblage of woodland salamanders. Salamander abundance near the road was reduced significantly, and salamanders along the edges were predominantly large individuals. These results indicate that the road-effect zone for these salamanders extended 35 m on either side of the relatively narrow, low-use forest roads along which we sampled. Furthermore, salamander abundance was significantly lower on old, abandoned logging roads compared with the adjacent upslope sites. These results indicate that forest roads and abandoned logging roads have negative effects on forest-dependent species such as plethodontid salamanders. Our results may apply to other protected forests in the southern Appalachians and may exemplify a problem created by current and past land use activities in all forested regions, especially those related to road building for natural-resource extraction. Our results show that the effect of roads reached well beyond their boundary and that abandonment or the decommissioning of roads did not reverse detrimental ecological effects; rather, our results indicate that management decisions have significant repercussions for generations to come. Furthermore, the quantity of suitable forested habitat in the protected areas we studied was significantly reduced: between 28.6% and 36.9% of the area was affected by roads. Management and policy decisions must use current and historical data on land use to understand cumulative impacts on forest-dependent species and to fully protect biodiversity on national landsPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73456/1/j.1523-1739.2006.00571.x.pd

Substrate specificity analysis of protein kinase complex Dbf2-Mob1 by peptide library and proteome array screening

BACKGROUND: The mitotic exit network (MEN) is a group of proteins that form a signaling cascade that is essential for cells to exit mitosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The MEN has also been implicated in playing a role in cytokinesis. Two components of this signaling pathway are the protein kinase Dbf2 and its binding partner essential for its kinase activity, Mob1. The components of MEN that act upstream of Dbf2-Mob1 have been characterized, but physiological substrates for Dbf2-Mob1 have yet to be identified. RESULTS: Using a combination of peptide library selection, phosphorylation of opitmal peptide variants, and screening of a phosphosite array, we found that Dbf2-Mob1 preferentially phosphorylated serine over threonine and required an arginine three residues upstream of the phosphorylated serine in its substrate. This requirement for arginine in peptide substrates could not be substituted with the similarly charged lysine. This specificity determined for peptide substrates was also evident in many of the proteins phosphorylated by Dbf2-Mob1 in a proteome chip analysis. CONCLUSION: We have determined by peptide library selection and phosphosite array screening that the protein kinase Dbf2-Mob1 preferentially phosphorylated substrates that contain an RXXS motif. A subsequent proteome microarray screen revealed proteins that can be phosphorylated by Dbf2-Mob1 in vitro. These proteins are enriched for RXXS motifs, and may include substrates that mediate the function of Dbf2-Mob1 in mitotic exit and cytokinesis. The relatively low degree of sequence restriction at the site of phosphorylation suggests that Dbf2 achieves specificity by docking its substrates at a site that is distinct from the phosphorylation sit

Replication and Meta-analysis of the Association between BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism and Cognitive Impairment in Patients Receiving Chemotherapy.

Cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) adversely affects cancer patients. We had previously demonstrated that the BDNF Val66Met genetic polymorphism is associated with lower odds of subjective CRCI in the multitasking and verbal ability domains among breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. To further assess our previous findings, we evaluated the association of BDNF Val66Met polymorphism with subjective and objective CRCI in a temporally separate cohort of patients and pooled findings from both the original (n = 145) and current (n = 193) cohorts in a meta-analysis. Subjective CRCI was assessed using FACT-Cog. Objective CRCI was evaluated using computerized neuropsychological tests. Genotyping was carried out using Sanger sequencing. The association of BDNF Val66Met genotypes and CRCI was examined with logistic regression. A fixed-effect meta-analysis was conducted using the inverse variance method. In the meta-analysis (n = 338), significantly lower odds of CRCI were associated with Met allele carriers based on the global FACT-Cog score (OR = 0.52, 95% CI 0.29-0.94). Furthermore, Met allele carriers were at lower odds of developing impairment in the domains of memory (OR = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.17-0.70), multitasking (OR = 0.33, 95% CI: 0.18-0.59), and verbal ability (OR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.24-0.88). Consistent with the previous study, lower odds of subjective CRCI among patients with the BDNF Met allele was observed after adjusting for potential confounders in the multitasking (OR = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.14-0.67) domain. In conclusion, carriers of the BDNF Met allele were protected against global subjective CRCI, particularly in the domains of memory, multitasking, and verbal ability. Our findings further contribute to the understanding of CRCI pathophysiology

Formation of Super-Earths

Super-Earths are the most abundant planets known to date and are characterized by having sizes between that of Earth and Neptune, typical orbital periods of less than 100 days and gaseous envelopes that are often massive enough to significantly contribute to the planet's overall radius. Furthermore, super-Earths regularly appear in tightly-packed multiple-planet systems, but resonant configurations in such systems are rare. This chapters summarizes current super-Earth formation theories. It starts from the formation of rocky cores and subsequent accretion of gaseous envelopes. We follow the thermal evolution of newly formed super-Earths and discuss their atmospheric mass loss due to disk dispersal, photoevaporation, core-cooling and collisions. We conclude with a comparison of observations and theoretical predictions, highlighting that even super-Earths that appear as barren rocky cores today likely formed with primordial hydrogen and helium envelopes and discuss some paths forward for the future.Comment: Invited review accepted for publication in the 'Handbook of Exoplanets,' Planet Formation section, Springer Reference Works, Juan Antonio Belmonte and Hans Deeg, Ed

Working Group Recommendations for an Indiana University Research Data Commons

Starting on April 28, 2022, our Working Group set out to make recommendations for an Indiana University Research Data Commons (IU-RDCom), a strategy to identify and meet the growing needs associated with research data at our university. Developing a way to find, access, use and share research data is an iterative process that many peer universities are also currently pursuing. The process requires a university to identify researchers’ needs, catalog services that currently exist, understand how they can be leveraged along with new investments to meet these needs, and to establish a sustainable governance structure for developing and evolving the IU-RDCom. A competitive research data infrastructure will pay for itself in many ways through new external funding while it increases our scholarly, educational and service missions. The present report outlines our recommendations to VPR for practical steps IU should pursue in the near-, medium-, and long-term. In brief, these recommendations are to: 1) Establish a governing body to coordinate a research data commons. 2) Task the governing body with implementing and building on our recommendations. 3) Encourage IU leadership to communicate and promote IU’s strengths in research data. 4) Provide short-to-medium run financial support for building a foundation for the data commons. As stated in the charge to the Working Group (WG), the broad mission of the IU-RDCom is multifaceted: to serve as a university-wide resource for discovering, sharing, and accessing data resources across the IU community; to build on our world-class strengths in centralized cyberinfrastructure and other areas to present researchers with easier and more integrated pathways to our data resources; to enable richer training opportunities for students; and to empower IU to better serve local organizations, our state, and other partners. With exponential recent growth in the role of data in society and in scholarship, the need for universities to engage in strategic planning to strengthen research data infrastructure has been emphasized in new reports from the American Association of Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). NASEM committees are also presently guiding the vision for federal research data infrastructure for the 21st century for similar reasons as for academia. From communications with research data leadership at peer institutions over the course of our work, it is amply clear that other universities are also prioritizing central-level strategies to meet these growing research data needs in academia

Cohesin complex-associated holoprosencephaly

Marked by incomplete division of the embryonic forebrain, holoprosencephaly is one of the most common human developmental disorders. Despite decades of phenotype-driven research, 80–90% of aneuploidy-negative holoprosencephaly individuals with a probable genetic aetiology do not have a genetic diagnosis. Here we report holoprosencephaly associated with variants in the two X-linked cohesin complex genes, STAG2 and SMC1A, with loss-of-function variants in 10 individuals and a missense variant in one. Additionally, we report four individuals with variants in the cohesin complex genes that are not X-linked, SMC3 and RAD21. Using whole mount in situ hybridization, we show that STAG2 and SMC1A are expressed in the prosencephalic neural folds during primary neurulation in the mouse, consistent with forebrain morphogenesis and holoprosencephaly pathogenesis. Finally, we found that shRNA knockdown of STAG2 and SMC1A causes aberrant expression of HPE-associated genes ZIC2, GLI2, SMAD3 and FGFR1 in human neural stem cells. These findings show the cohesin complex as an important regulator of median forebrain development and X-linked inheritance patterns in holoprosencephaly