Sound and Precise Malware Analysis for Android via Pushdown Reachability and Entry-Point Saturation

We present Anadroid, a static malware analysis framework for Android apps. Anadroid exploits two techniques to soundly raise precision: (1) it uses a pushdown system to precisely model dynamically dispatched interprocedural and exception-driven control-flow; (2) it uses Entry-Point Saturation (EPS) to soundly approximate all possible interleavings of asynchronous entry points in Android applications. (It also integrates static taint-flow analysis and least permissions analysis to expand the class of malicious behaviors which it can catch.) Anadroid provides rich user interface support for human analysts which must ultimately rule on the "maliciousness" of a behavior. To demonstrate the effectiveness of Anadroid's malware analysis, we had teams of analysts analyze a challenge suite of 52 Android applications released as part of the Auto- mated Program Analysis for Cybersecurity (APAC) DARPA program. The first team analyzed the apps using a ver- sion of Anadroid that uses traditional (finite-state-machine-based) control-flow-analysis found in existing malware analysis tools; the second team analyzed the apps using a version of Anadroid that uses our enhanced pushdown-based control-flow-analysis. We measured machine analysis time, human analyst time, and their accuracy in flagging malicious applications. With pushdown analysis, we found statistically significant (p < 0.05) decreases in time: from 85 minutes per app to 35 minutes per app in human plus machine analysis time; and statistically significant (p < 0.05) increases in accuracy with the pushdown-driven analyzer: from 71% correct identification to 95% correct identification.Comment: Appears in 3rd Annual ACM CCS workshop on Security and Privacy in SmartPhones and Mobile Devices (SPSM'13), Berlin, Germany, 201

An integrated perspective linking physiological and psychological consequences of mild traumatic brain injury

Despite the often seemingly innocuous nature of a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), its consequences can be devastating, comprising debilitating symptoms that interfere with daily functioning. Currently, it is still difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of adverse outcome after mTBI. In fact, extensive research suggests that the underlying etiology is multifactorial. In the acute and early sub-acute stages, the pathophysiology of mTBI is likely to be dominated by complex physiological alterations including cellular injury, inflammation, and the acute stress response, which could lead to neural network dysfunction. In this stage, patients often report symptoms such as fatigue, headache, unstable mood and poor concentration. When time passes, psychological processes, such as coping styles, personality and emotion regulation, become increasingly influential. Disadvantageous, maladaptive, psychological mechanisms likely result in chronic stress which facilitates the development of long-lasting symptoms, possibly via persistent neural network dysfunction. So far, a systemic understanding of the coupling between these physiological and psychological factors that in concert define outcome after mTBI is lacking. The purpose of this narrative review article is to address how psychophysiological interactions may lead to poor outcome after mTBI. In addition, a framework is presented that may serve as a template for future studies on this subject

Descriptive Norms Caused Increases in Mask Wearing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Human sociality is governed by two types of social norms: injunctive norms, which prescribe what people ought to do, and descriptive norms, which reflect what people actually do. The process by which these norms emerge and their causal influences on cooperative behavior over time are not well understood. Here, we study these questions through social norms influencing mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging 2 years of data from the United States (18 time points; n = 915), we tracked mask wearing and perceived injunctive and descriptive mask wearing norms as the pandemic unfolded. Longitudinal trends suggested that norms and behavior were tightly coupled, changing quickly in response to public health recommendations. In addition, longitudinal modeling revealed that descriptive norms caused future increases in mask wearing across multiple waves of data collection. These cross-lagged causal effects of descriptive norms were large, even after controlling for non-social beliefs and demographic variables. Injunctive norms, by contrast, had less frequent and generally weaker causal effects on future mask wearing. During uncertain times, cooperative behavior is more strongly driven by what others are actually doing, rather than what others think ought to be done

Standardizing test scores for a target population: The LMS method illustrated using language measures from the SCALES project

Background: Centile curves and standard scores are common in epidemiological research. However, standardised norms and centile growth curves for language disorder that reflect the entire UK local school population do not exist. Methods: Scores on six language indices assessing receptive and expressive functioning of children were obtained from the SCALES population survey. Monolingual English speaking participants were aged between five and nine years. Children who attended special schools at study intake, or who were learning English as an additional language were excluded. We constructed language norms using the LMS method of standardisation which allows for skewed measurements. We made use of probability weights that were produced from a two-step logistic model. Distributions of estimated standard scores from an intensively assessed subpopulation and from the full population were contrasted to demonstrate the role of weights. Results: Non-overlapping centile curves and standardised scores at each age were obtained for the six language indices. The use of weights was essential at retrieving the target distribution of the scores. An online calculator that estimates standardised scores for the measures was constructed and made freely available. Conclusions: The findings highlight the usefulness and flexibility of the LMS method at dealing with the standardisation of linguistic and educational measures that are sufficiently continuous. The paper adds to the existing literature by providing population norms for a number of language tests that were calculated from the same group of individuals

High baseline perivascular space volume in basal ganglia is associated with attention and executive function decline in Parkinsons disease.

BACKGROUND: Pathologic perivascular spaces (PVS), the fluid-filled compartments surrounding brain vasculature, may underlie cognitive decline in Parkinsons disease (PD). However, whether this impacts specific cognitive domains has not been investigated. OBJECTIVES: This study examined the relationship of PVS volume at baseline with domain-specific and global cognitive change over 2 years in PD individuals. METHODS: A total of 39 individuals with PD underwent 3T T1w magnetic resonance imaging to determine PVS volume fraction (PVS volume normalized to total regional volume) within (i) centrum semiovale, (ii) prefrontal white matter (medial orbitofrontal, rostral middle frontal, and superior frontal), and (iii) basal ganglia. A neuropsychological battery included assessment of cognitive domains and global cognitive function at baseline and after 2 years. RESULTS: Higher basal ganglia PVS at baseline was associated with greater decline in attention, executive function, and global cognition scores. CONCLUSIONS: While previous reports have associated elevated PVS volume in the basal ganglia with decline in global cognition in PD, our findings show such decline may affect the attention and executive function domains

Imprinting.

Imprinting is a type of learning by which an animal restricts its social preferences to an object after exposure to that object. Filial imprinting occurs shortly after birth or hatching and sexual imprinting, around the onset of sexual maturity; both have sensitive periods. This review is concerned mainly with filial imprinting. Filial imprinting in the domestic chick is an effective experimental system for investigating mechanisms underlying learning and memory. Extensive evidence implicates a restricted part of the chick forebrain, the intermediate and medial mesopallium (IMM), as a memory store for visual imprinting. After imprinting to a visual stimulus, neuronal responsiveness in IMM is specifically biased toward the imprinting stimulus. Both this bias and the strength of imprinting measured behaviorally depend on uninterrupted sleep shortly after training. When learning-related changes in IMM are lateralized they occur predominantly or completely on the left side. Ablation experiments indicate that the left IMM is responsible for long-term storage of information about the imprinting stimulus; the right side is also a store but additionally is necessary for extra storage outside IMM, in a region necessary for flexible use of information acquired through imprinting. Auditory imprinting gives rise to biochemical, neuroanatomical, and electrophysiological changes in the medio-rostral nidopallium/mesopallium, anterior to IMM. Auditory imprinting has not been shown to produce learning-related changes in IMM. Imprinting may be facilitated by predispositions. Similar predispositions for faces and biological motion occur in domestic chicks and human infants. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:375-390. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1231 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.This review is written in memory of the late Sir Gabriel Horn, in recognition of his pioneering work on the neurobiology of imprinting. I am indebted to Robert Levin, Alister Nicol, Revaz Solomonia, Rie Suge, and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on a draft manuscript. The review was written while in receipt of a project grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wcs.123