Internet Voting Protocols: An Analysis of the Cryptographic Operations per Phase

Internet voting is a good option for Colombia thanks to the expansion of mobile technology throughout the country and the interest of the government to implement the e-voting. For this reason, we study the e-voting protocols to establish if any of them is suitable for Colombian elections. However some of them imply a great number of cryptographic operations and therefore a great computational cost for the devices, which sometimes exceed their capacity. In this paper, we determine the number of cryptographic operations per phase of four e-voting protocols: one based on blind signatures (Li, Hwang and Lai protocol), one based on mix nets (Meng protocol), one based on homomorphic encryption (EVIV protocol) and one used in real electoral processes (I-Voting for Estonian Elections). Then, we analyze the changes in the number of operations when the number of voters, number of votes, number of authorities and number of candidates increase for small, medium and large elections. Finally, we establish the protocol that imply a less number of cryptographic operations and is suitable for big electoral processes, such as congress elections in Colombia

Stroke genetics informs drug discovery and risk prediction across ancestries

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke — the second leading cause of death worldwide — were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry1,2. Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis3, and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach4, we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry5. Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries

La integración de la cadena de suministro con los proveedores de servicios logísticos y el desempeño organizacional

Esta investigación presenta un estudio correlacional, que involucra el desempeño organizacional y la integración de operadores logísticos en la cadena de suministro con el fin de analizar el impacto generado por la implementación de proveedores de servicios logísticos en el desempeño de las Pymes exportadoras.Universidad del RosarioThis research presents a correlational study, involving organizational performance and integration of logistics operators in the supply chain in order to analyze the impact generated by the implementation of logistics service providers in organizational performance of exporting SMEs

Secure Internet Voting Protocol (SIVP): a secure option for electoral processes

© 2021 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Colombia government wants to implement electronic voting. However, the existing electronic voting protocols only include some of the required security features and Colombia needs a protocol with all these features to ensure fraud-free elections. In this paper, we present the design of SIVP (Secure Internet Voting Protocol), a new voting protocol for electoral processes, based on blind signatures and public key cryptography. This protocol has six phases and provides: eligibility, democracy, privacy, verifiability, accuracy, fairness, robustness, receipt-freeness and coercion-resistant. Also, we compare the number of cryptographic operations per phase of SIVP with other four protocols and conclude that the computational load of our protocol is not excessively high despite including more security features.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Caracterización de la apicultura en el valle del cauca y su futuro desarrollo

La información para caracterizar los aspectos técnicos, económicos y sociales de la apicultura se obtuvo mediante entrevistas y encuestas (88 productores apícolas, 6 fabricantes de implementos apícolas, una Cooperativa que comercia la miel de abejas en el departamento y un consumidor industrial). Se determinaron las principales características de las explotaciones apícolas. El manejo realizado en los apiarios y el grado de conocimiento de los apicultores se utilizaron para evaluar la asistencia técnica. Se describió el mercadeo de la miel de abejas y se caracterizó la unidad de producción apícola (UPA)One study of characterization (technical, economic and social aspects) of the bee-keeping in the Valle del Cauca was carried out. The information was obtained from interview and inquiries (88 to bee-keepers, 6 to rnarkers of beekeeping tools, one to the small species cooperative and to Colombina S. A.). The main characteristics of the beekeeping and the apiaries were determined. The management was made in the apiaries using the bee-keeper’s knowledge in order to evaluate the technical assistence. The unit of beekeping production (UPA) was defined pointing out its characteristics. The marketing of honey was also described

Menopause status moderates sex differences in tau burden:a Framingham PET Study

OBJECTIVE: Women have a higher lifetime risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) than men. Among cognitively normal (CN) older adults, women exhibit elevated tau positron emission tomography (PET) signal compared with men. We explored whether menopause exacerbates sex differences in tau deposition in middle‐aged adults. METHODS: 328 CN participants from the Framingham Study (mean age = 57 years (±10 years), 161 women, of whom, 104 were post‐menopausal) underwent tau and β‐amyloid (Aβ)‐PET neuroimaging. We examined global Aβ‐PET, and tau‐PET signal in 5 regions identified a priori as demonstrating significant sex differences in older adults (in temporal, inferior parietal, middle frontal, and lateral occipital regions). We examined sex and menopause status‐related differences in each region‐of‐interest, using linear regressions, as well as interactions with Aβ and APOEε4 genotype. RESULTS: Women exhibited higher tau‐PET signal (p < 0.002), and global Aβ‐PET (p = 0.010), than men in inferior parietal, rostral middle frontal, and lateral occipital regions. Compared with age‐matched men, post‐menopausal women showed significantly higher tau‐PET signal in parieto‐occipital regions (p < 0.0001). By contrast, no differences in tau‐PET signal existed between pre‐menopausal women and men. Aβ‐PET was not associated with menopausal status or age. Neither Aβ‐PET nor APOEε4 status moderated sex or menopause associations with tau‐PET. INTERPRETATION: Clear divergence in tauopathy between the sexes are apparent approximately 20 years earlier than previously reported. Menopause status moderated sex differences in Aβ and tau‐PET burden, with tau first appearing post‐menopause. Sex and menopause differences consistently appeared in middle frontal and parieto‐occipital regions but were not moderated by Aβ burden or APOEε4, suggesting that menopause‐related tau vulnerability may be independent of AD‐related pathways. ANN NEUROL 2022;92:11–2

Associations Between Brainstem Volume and Alzheimer's Disease Pathology in Middle-Aged Individuals of the Framingham Heart Study

The brainstem is among the first regions to accumulate Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related hyperphosphorylated tau pathology during aging. We aimed to examine associations between brainstem volume and neocortical amyloid-β or tau pathology in 271 middle-aged clinically normal individuals of the Framingham Heart Study who underwent MRI and PET imaging. Lower volume of the medulla, pons, or midbrain was associated with greater neocortical amyloid burden. No associations were detected between brainstem volumes and tau deposition. Our results support the hypothesis that lower brainstem volumes are associated with initial AD-related processes and may signal preclinical AD pathology