Characterizing Cyber Attacks against Space Systems with Missing Data: Framework and Case Study

Cybersecurity of space systems is an emerging topic, but there is no single dataset that documents cyber attacks against space systems that have occurred in the past. These incidents are often scattered in media reports while missing many details, which we dub the missing-data problem. Nevertheless, even "low-quality" datasets containing such reports would be extremely valuable because of the dearth of space cybersecurity data and the sensitivity of space systems which are often restricted from disclosure by governments. This prompts a research question: How can we characterize real-world cyber attacks against space systems? In this paper, we address the problem by proposing a framework, including metrics, while also addressing the missing-data problem, by "extrapolating" the missing data in a principled fashion. To show the usefulness of the framework, we extract data for 72 cyber attacks against space systems and show how to extrapolate this "low-quality" dataset to derive 4,076 attack technique kill chains. Our findings include: cyber attacks against space systems are getting increasingly sophisticated; and, successful protection against on-path and social engineering attacks could have prevented 80% of the attacks.Comment: Accepted for publication: IEEE International Conference on Communications and Network Security 2023 (IEEE CNS

PFAS levels and determinants of variability in exposure in European teenagers - Results from the HBM4EU aligned studies (2014-2021)

Background: Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are man-made fluorinated chemicals, widely used in various types of consumer products, resulting in their omnipresence in human populations. The aim of this study was to describe current PFAS levels in European teenagers and to investigate the determinants of serum/plasma concentrations in this specific age group. Methods: PFAS concentrations were determined in serum or plasma samples from 1957 teenagers (12-18 years) from 9 European countries as part of the HBM4EU aligned studies (2014-2021). Questionnaire data were post-harmonized by each study and quality checked centrally. Only PFAS with an overall quantification frequency of at least 60% (PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS and PFNA) were included in the analyses. Sociodemographic and lifestyle factors were analysed together with food consumption frequencies to identify determinants of PFAS exposure. The variables study, sex and the highest educational level of household were included as fixed factors in the multivariable linear regression models for all PFAS and each dietary variable was added to the fixed model one by one and for each PFAS separately. Results: The European exposure values for PFAS were reported as geometric means with 95% confidence intervals (CI): PFOS [2.13 μg/L (1.63-2.78)], PFOA ([0.97 μg/L (0.75-1.26)]), PFNA [0.30 μg/L (0.19-0.45)] and PFHxS [0.41 μg/L (0.33-0.52)]. The estimated geometric mean exposure levels were significantly higher in the North and West versus the South and East of Europe. Boys had significantly higher concentrations of the four PFAS compared to girls and significantly higher PFASs concentrations were found in teenagers from households with a higher education level. Consumption of seafood and fish at least 2 times per week was significantly associated with 21% (95% CI: 12-31%) increase in PFOS concentrations and 20% (95% CI: 10-31%) increase in PFNA concentrations as compared to less frequent consumption of seafood and fish. The same trend was observed for PFOA and PFHxS but not statistically significant. Consumption of eggs at least 2 times per week was associated with 11% (95% CI: 2-22%) and 14% (95% CI: 2-27%) increase in PFOS and PFNA concentrations, respectively, as compared to less frequent consumption of eggs. Significantly higher PFOS concentrations were observed for participants consuming offal (14% (95% CI: 3-26%)), the same trend was observed for the other PFAS but not statistically significant. Local food consumption at least 2 times per week was associated with 40% (95% CI: 19-64%) increase in PFOS levels as compared to those consuming local food less frequently. Conclusion: This work provides information about current levels of PFAS in European teenagers and potential dietary sources of exposure to PFAS in European teenagers. These results can be of use for targeted monitoring of PFAS in food.This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement No 733032 HBM4EU (www.HBM4EU.eu), and received co-funding from the authors’ organizations: Riksmaten Adolescents: Riksmaten Adolescents was performed by the Swedish Food Agency with financial support from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. NEB II: The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) has contributed to funding of the Norwegian Environmental Biobank (NEB). The laboratory measurements have partly been funded by the Research Council of Norway through research projects (275903 and 268465) PCB cohort follow-up: PCB cohort follow-up received additional funding from the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, program 07B0103. BEA: BEA study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (SEG 1321/15) SLO-CRP: The Slovenian SLO-CRP study was co-financed by the Jozef Stefan Institute program P1- 0143, and a national project “Exposure of children and adolescents to selected chemicals through their habitat environment” (grant agreement No. C2715-16-634802). CROME: CROME study was co-funded by the European Commission research funds of Horizon 2020. ESTEBAN: ESTEBAN study was funded by Santé Publique France and the French ministries of Health and the Environment. GerES V-sub: The funding of the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection is gratefully acknowledged. FLEHS IV: The Flemish Center of Expertise on Environment and Health is funded by the Government of Flanders, Department of Environment & Spatial Development.S

The ALMA Interferometric Pipeline Heuristics

We describe the calibration and imaging heuristics developed and deployed in the ALMA interferometric data processing pipeline, as of ALMA Cycle 9. The pipeline software framework is written in Python, with each data reduction stage layered on top of tasks and toolkit functions provided by the Common Astronomy Software Applications package. This framework supports a variety of tasks for observatory operations, including science data quality assurance, observing mode commissioning, and user reprocessing. It supports ALMA and VLA interferometric data along with ALMA and NRO45m single dish data, via different stages and heuristics. In addition to producing calibration tables, calibrated measurement sets, and cleaned images, the pipeline creates a WebLog which serves as the primary interface for verifying the data quality assurance by the observatory and for examining the contents of the data by the user. Following the adoption of the pipeline by ALMA Operations in 2014, the heuristics have been refined through annual development cycles, culminating in a new pipeline release aligned with the start of each ALMA Cycle of observations. Initial development focused on basic calibration and flagging heuristics (Cycles 2-3), followed by imaging heuristics (Cycles 4-5), refinement of the flagging and imaging heuristics with parallel processing (Cycles 6-7), addition of the moment difference analysis to improve continuum channel identification (2020 release), addition of a spectral renormalization stage (Cycle 8), and improvement in low SNR calibration heuristics (Cycle 9). In the two most recent Cycles, 97% of ALMA datasets were calibrated and imaged with the pipeline, ensuring long-term automated reproducibility. We conclude with a brief description of plans for future additions, including self-calibration, multi-configuration imaging, and calibration and imaging of full polarization data.Comment: accepted for publication by Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 65 pages, 20 figures, 10 tables, 2 appendice

Diversity and carbon storage across the tropical forest biome

Tropical forests are global centres of biodiversity and carbon storage. Many tropical countries aspire to protect forest to fulfil biodiversity and climate mitigation policy targets, but the conservation strategies needed to achieve these two functions depend critically on the tropical forest tree diversity-carbon storage relationship. Assessing this relationship is challenging due to the scarcity of inventories where carbon stocks in aboveground biomass and species identifications have been simultaneously and robustly quantified. Here, we compile a unique pan-tropical dataset of 360 plots located in structurally intact old-growth closed-canopy forest, surveyed using standardised methods, allowing a multi-scale evaluation of diversity-carbon relationships in tropical forests. Diversity-carbon relationships among all plots at 1 ha scale across the tropics are absent, and within continents are either weak (Asia) or absent (Amazonia, Africa). A weak positive relationship is detectable within 1 ha plots, indicating that diversity effects in tropical forests may be scale dependent. The absence of clear diversity-carbon relationships at scales relevant to conservation planning means that carbon-centred conservation strategies will inevitably miss many high diversity ecosystems. As tropical forests can have any combination of tree diversity and carbon stocks both require explicit consideration when optimising policies to manage tropical carbon and biodiversity.Additional co-authors: Kofi Affum-Baffoe, Shin-ichiro Aiba, Everton Cristo de Almeida, Edmar Almeida de Oliveira, Patricia Alvarez-Loayza, Esteban Álvarez Dávila, Ana Andrade, Luiz E. O. C. Aragão, Peter Ashton, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Timothy R. Baker, Michael Balinga, Lindsay F. Banin, Christopher Baraloto, Jean-Francois Bastin, Nicholas Berry, Jan Bogaert, Damien Bonal, Frans Bongers, Roel Brienen, José Luís C. Camargo, Carlos Cerón, Victor Chama Moscoso, Eric Chezeaux, Connie J. Clark, Álvaro Cogollo Pacheco, James A. Comiskey, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado, Greta Dargie, Stuart J. Davies, Charles De Canniere, Marie Noel Djuikouo K., Jean-Louis Doucet, Terry L. Erwin, Javier Silva Espejo, Corneille E. N. Ewango, Sophie Fauset, Ted R. Feldpausch, Rafael Herrera, Martin Gilpin, Emanuel Gloor, Jefferson S. Hall, David J. Harris, Terese B. Hart, Kuswata Kartawinata, Lip Khoon Kho, Kanehiro Kitayama, Susan G. W. Laurance, William F. Laurance, Miguel E. Leal, Thomas Lovejoy, Jon C. Lovett, Faustin Mpanya Lukasu, Jean-Remy Makana, Yadvinder Malhi, Leandro Maracahipes, Beatriz S. Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon Junior, Andrew R. Marshall, Paulo S. Morandi, John Tshibamba Mukendi, Jaques Mukinzi, Reuben Nilus, Percy Núñez Vargas, Nadir C. Pallqui Camacho, Guido Pardo, Marielos Peña-Claros, Pascal Pétronelli, Georgia C. Pickavance, Axel Dalberg Poulsen, John R. Poulsen, Richard B. Primack, Hari Priyadi, Carlos A. Quesada, Jan Reitsma, Maxime Réjou-Méchain, Zorayda Restrepo, Ervan Rutishauser, Kamariah Abu Salim, Rafael P. Salomão, Ismayadi Samsoedin, Douglas Sheil, Rodrigo Sierra, Marcos Silveira, J. W. Ferry Slik, Lisa Steel, Hermann Taedoumg, Sylvester Tan, John W. Terborgh, Sean C. Thomas, Marisol Toledo, Peter M. Umunay, Luis Valenzuela Gamarra, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Vincent A. Vos, Ophelia Wang, Simon Willcock & Lise Zemagh

Determinants of the urinary and serum metabolome in children from six European populations

Background Environment and diet in early life can affect development and health throughout the life course. Metabolic phenotyping of urine and serum represents a complementary systems-wide approach to elucidate environment–health interactions. However, large-scale metabolome studies in children combining analyses of these biological fluids are lacking. Here, we sought to characterise the major determinants of the child metabolome and to define metabolite associations with age, sex, BMI and dietary habits in European children, by exploiting a unique biobank established as part of the Human Early-Life Exposome project (http://www.projecthelix.eu). Methods Metabolic phenotypes of matched urine and serum samples from 1192 children (aged 6–11) recruited from birth cohorts in six European countries were measured using high-throughput 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and a targeted LC-MS/MS metabolomic assay (Biocrates AbsoluteIDQ p180 kit). Results We identified both urinary and serum creatinine to be positively associated with age. Metabolic associations to BMI z-score included a novel association with urinary 4-deoxyerythronic acid in addition to valine, serum carnitine, short-chain acylcarnitines (C3, C5), glutamate, BCAAs, lysophosphatidylcholines (lysoPC a C14:0, lysoPC a C16:1, lysoPC a C18:1, lysoPC a C18:2) and sphingolipids (SM C16:0, SM C16:1, SM C18:1). Dietary-metabolite associations included urinary creatine and serum phosphatidylcholines (4) with meat intake, serum phosphatidylcholines (12) with fish, urinary hippurate with vegetables, and urinary proline betaine and hippurate with fruit intake. Population-specific variance (age, sex, BMI, ethnicity, dietary and country of origin) was better captured in the serum than in the urine profile; these factors explained a median of 9.0% variance amongst serum metabolites versus a median of 5.1% amongst urinary metabolites. Metabolic pathway correlations were identified, and concentrations of corresponding metabolites were significantly correlated (r > 0.18) between urine and serum. Conclusions We have established a pan-European reference metabolome for urine and serum of healthy children and gathered critical resources not previously available for future investigations into the influence of the metabolome on child health. The six European cohort populations studied share common metabolic associations with age, sex, BMI z-score and main dietary habits. Furthermore, we have identified a novel metabolic association between threonine catabolism and BMI of children

The Reading Palaeofire Database : an expanded global resource to document changes in fire regimes from sedimentary charcoal records

Sedimentary charcoal records are widely used to reconstruct regional changes in fire regimes through time in the geological past. Existing global compilations are not geographically comprehensive and do not provide consistent metadata for all sites. Furthermore, the age models provided for these records are not harmonised and many are based on older calibrations of the radiocarbon ages. These issues limit the use of existing compilations for research into past fire regimes. Here, we present an expanded database of charcoal records, accompanied by new age models based on recalibration of radiocarbon ages using IntCal20 and Bayesian age-modelling software. We document the structure and contents of the database, the construction of the age models, and the quality control measures applied. We also record the expansion of geographical coverage relative to previous charcoal compilations and the expansion of metadata that can be used to inform analyses. This first version of the Reading Palaeofire Database contains 1676 records (entities) from 1480 sites worldwide. The database (RPDv1b - Harrison et al., 2021) is available at https://doi.org/10.17864/1947.000345.Peer reviewe

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival