Inter-brain entrainment (IBE) during interoception. A multimodal EEG-fNIRS coherence-based hyperscanning approach

This work examined the impact of interoceptive manipulation and the presence of a shared goal on inter-brain entrainment (IBE) during a motor synchronization task. A multimodal functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy - Electroencephalogram (fNIRS-EEG) system-based hyperscanning approach was applied to 13 dyads performing the motor synchrony task during an interoceptive (focus on the breath) and control condition. Additionally, two version of the motor task-one with and one without a clearly defined common goal-were presented to participants to emphasize the task's collaborative purpose. The multimodal approach was exploited to record the electrophysiological (EEG) cortical oscillation and hemodynamic (oxy-Hb and deoxy-Hb) levels. Results revealed significant correlations between EEG delta, theta, and alpha band and hemodynamic oxy-Hb in the left compared to right hemisphere for the interoceptive confronted with the control condition. This significant EEG/fNIRS IBE correlation was also found for delta and theta band whereas the task was presented with an explicit shared goal confronted with the no-social version. In addition to separate functional connectivity EEG and fNIRS analysis, this study proposed a novel analysis pipeline including statistical tests for examining the coherence between functional connectivity EEG-fNIRS signals within couples. Besides proposing methodological advancements on EEG-fNIRS signals hyperscanning analysis, this research demonstrated that, in dyads undertaking a motor synchronization task, both the interoceptive attention to respiration and an explicit joint intention activate left anterior regions.

The origins and early development of the ILAE/IBE/WHO global campaign against epilepsy: Out of the shadows

The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE)/International Bureau for Epilepsy (IBE)/World Health Organization (WHO) Global Campaign Against Epilepsy was launched in Geneva and Dublin in the summer of 1997. The second phase of the Campaign was launched by a major event in Geneva, led by WHO Director General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland in February 2001. Since then, the Campaign has been gathering momentum around the world culminating in the WHO General Assembly Resolution (WHA 68.20) on Epilepsy in May 2015 supported by 194 countries. Recently, the World Federation of Neurology and other neurological non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have joined forces with the Epilepsy Campaign, leading to the WHO General Assembly Resolution (WHA 73.10) in May 2022 promoting a 10-year Intersectoral Global Action Plan (IGAP) for Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders. I was privileged to serve as the first Chairperson of the Global Campaign Against Epilepsy and this year all my documents and correspondence relating to the Campaign have been delivered to the Wellcome Collection in London. These are the basis for this detailed account of the origins and early development of the Campaign. I describe the events leading to the birth of the concept, planning for the Campaign, the launch, development, and the achievements of phase one. This first phase focused on awareness raising, education, and involvement, especially within WHO, ILAE, and IBE, including a series of five Regional Public Health meetings and Declarations on Epilepsy. In 1999, the WHO raised the status of the Campaign to the highest level, the first ever for a Non-Communicable Disease, resulting in the high profile launch of phase two in 2001, paving the way to the continuing global momentum and achievements, including the 2015 and 2022 WHO Resolutions.

Weak Genetic Isolation and Putative Phenotypic Selection in the Wild Carnation Dianthus virgineus (Caryophyllaceae)

By relating genetic divergence at neutral loci, phenotypic variation, and geographic and environmental distances, it is possible to dissect micro-evolutionary scenarios involving natural selection and neutral evolution. In this work, we tested the patterns of intraspecific genetic and phenotypic variation along an elevational gradient, using Dianthus virgineus as study system. We genotyped genome-wide SNPs through ddRAD sequencing and quantified phenotypic variation through multivariate morphological variation. We assessed patterns of variation by testing the statistical association between genetic, phenotypic, geographic, and elevational distances and explored the role of genetic drift and selection by comparing the Fst and Pst of morphometric traits. We revealed a weak genetic structure related to geographic distance among populations, but we excluded the predominant role of genetic drift acting on phenotypic traits. A high degree of phenotypic differentiation with respect to genetic divergence at neutral loci allowed us to hypothesize the effect of selection, putatively fuelled by changing conditions at different sites, on morphological traits. Thus, natural selection acting despite low genetic divergence at neutral loci can be hypothesized as a putative driver explaining the observed patterns of variation.

Hybrid Technique for Cyber-Physical Security in Cloud-Based Smart Industries

New technologies and trends in industries have opened up ways for distributed establishment of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) for smart industries. CPSs are largely based upon Internet of Things (IoT) because of data storage on cloud servers which poses many constraints due to the heterogeneous nature of devices involved in communication. Among other challenges, security is the most daunting challenge that contributes, at least in part, to the impeded momentum of the CPS realization. Designers assume that CPSs are themselves protected as they cannot be accessed from external networks. However, these days, CPSs have combined parts of the cyber world and also the physical layer. Therefore, cyber security problems are large for commercial CPSs because the systems move with one another and conjointly with physical surroundings, i.e., Complex Industrial Applications (CIA). Therefore, in this paper, a novel data security algorithm Dynamic Hybrid Secured Encryption Technique (DHSE) is proposed based on the hybrid encryption scheme of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) and Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE). The proposed algorithm divides the data into three categories, i.e., less sensitive, mid-sensitive and high sensitive. The data is distributed by forming the named-data packets (NDPs) via labelling the names. One can choose the number of rounds depending on the actual size of a key; it is necessary to perform a minimum of 10 rounds for 128-bit keys in DHSE. The average encryption time taken by AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), IBE (Identity-based encryption) and ABE (Attribute-Based Encryption) is 3.25 ms, 2.18 ms and 2.39 ms, respectively. Whereas the average time taken by the DHSE encryption algorithm is 2.07 ms which is very much less when compared to other algorithms. Similarly, the average decryption times taken by AES, IBE and ABE are 1.77 ms, 1.09 ms and 1.20 ms and the average times taken by the DHSE decryption algorithms are 1.07 ms, which is very much less when compared to other algorithms. The analysis shows that the framework is well designed and provides confidentiality of data with minimum encryption and decryption time. Therefore, the proposed approach is well suited for CPS-IoT.

Consciousness and inference to the best explanation: Compiling empirical evidence supporting the access-phenomenal distinction and the overflow hypothesis

A tacit assumption in the field of consciousness studies is that the more empirical evidence a theory can explain, the better it fares when weighed against competitors. If one wants to take seriously the potential for empirical evidence to move forward debates in consciousness studies, there is a need to gather, organize, validate, and compare evidence. We present an inference to the best explanation (IBE) process on the basis of empirical support that is applicable in debates between competing theories of consciousness. Our proposed IBE process consists in four steps: Assimilate, Compile, Validate, and Compare. Until now, the vast majority of the work in the field has consisted in gathering empirical evidence for theories i.e., the assimilation step. To illustrate the feasibility of our proposed IBE process, and what it may look like when applied in practice, we deliver a complete collection (the compilation step) of empirical support for the distinction between A-Consciousness and P-Consciousness and the overflow hypothesis. Finally, we offer an example of the validation step, by scrutinizing the interpretation of aphantasics' performance on retro-cue paradigms offered in the literature in support of the overflow hypothesis. The compilation we deliver here is the first effort in the IBE process, the end result of which - hopefully - will be the ability of the research community to carry out side-by-side comparisons of theories and the empirical phenomena they claim to explain, i.e., the comparison step.

The road to a World Health Organization global action plan on epilepsy and other neurological disorders

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized epilepsy as a public health imperative due to its occurrence at all ages in all regions of the world, its high impact on disability-adjusted life years and psychosocial aspects, and the accompanying stigma. The International League Against Epilepsy and the International Bureau for Epilepsy have established crucial collaborations with regional and global organizations to promote epilepsy as a treatable disease, close the treatment gap in care, education, and research, and eradicate stigma. In November 2020, the efforts of these three organizations-with support from WHO member states, the World Federation of Neurology, and the European Federation of Neurological Associations-culminated in the unanimous approval of a WHO resolution to create and implement an Intersectoral Global Action Plan on Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders. This unique achievement is built on more than 2 decades of collaboration and effort, and heralds extraordinary opportunities to work toward a world where no person's life is limited by epilepsy.

Freshwater zooplankton metapopulations and metacommunities respond differently to environmental and spatial variation

Theory predicts that population genetic structure and metacommunity structure are linked by the common processes of drift and migration, but how population genetic structure and metacommunity structure are related in nature is still unknown. Deeper understanding of the processes influencing both genetic and community diversity is vital for better predicting how environmental change will impact biodiversity patterns. We examined how crustacean zooplankton and rotifer species' metapopulation genetic structure and metacommunities respond to environmental and spatial variation both within and across four regions of boreal Canada. Metapopulation and metacommunity variation partitioning results were compared within and across the four regions. Metapopulations and metacommunities responded differently to environmental variation and spatial structure both within and across regions, as metapopulations were influenced by different environmental variables compared to metacommunities. At larger spatial scales both metapopulations and metacommunities exhibited greater spatial and environmental structuring, again responding to a different subset of environmental variables. Our findings suggest that even though both genetic and species diversity are linked by the same processes, regional variation in environmental characteristics and spatial structure influence resulting biodiversity patterns differently. To date, no other empirical research has explored relationships between entire metapopulation and metacommunity assemblages at large regional spatial scales.

Phenotypic and genomic analysis of isopropanol and 1,3-propanediol producer Clostridium diolis DSM 15410

Clostridium diolis DSM 15410 is a type strain of solventogenic clostridium capable of conducting isopropanol-butanol-ethanol fermentation. By studying its growth on different carbohydrates, we verified its ability to utilize glycerol and produce 1,3-propanediol and discovered its ability to produced isopropanol. Complete genome sequencing showed that its genome is a single circular chromosome and belongs to the cluster I (sensu scricto) of the genus Clostridium. By cultivation analysis we highlighted its specific behavior in comparison to two selected closely related strains. Despite the fact that several CRISPR loci were found, 16 putative prophages showed the ability to receive foreign DNA. Thus, the strain has the necessary features for future engineering of its 1,3-propanediol biosynthetic pathway and for the possible industrial utilization in the production of biofuels.

Adaptively Secure Efficient (H)IBE over Ideal Lattice with Short Parameters

Identity-based encryption (IBE), and its hierarchical extension (HIBE), are interesting cryptographic primitives that aim at the implicit authentication on the users’ public keys by using users’ identities directly. During the past several decades, numerous elegant pairing-based (H)IBE schemes were proposed. However, most pairing-related security assumptions suffer from known quantum algorithmic attacks. Therefore, the construction of lattice-based (H)IBE became one of the hot directions in recent years. In the setting of most existing lattice-based (H)IBE schemes, each bit of a user’s identity is always associated with a parameter matrix. This always leads to drastic but unfavorable increases in the sizes of the system public parameters. To overcome this issue, we propose a flexible trade-off mechanism between the size of the public parameters and the involved computational cost using the blocking technique. More specifically, we divide an identity into l′ segments and associate each segment with a matrix, while increasing the lattice modulo slightly for maintaining the same security level. As a result, for the setting of 160-bit identities, we show that the size of the public parameters can be reduced by almost 89.7% (resp. 93.8%) while increasing the computational cost by merely 5.2% (resp. 12.25%) when l′ is a set of 16 (resp. 8). Finally, our IBE scheme is extended to an HIBE scheme, and both of them are proved to achieve the indistinguishability of ciphertexts against adaptively chosen identity and chosen plaintext attack (IND-ID-CPA) in the standard model, assuming that the well-known ring learning with error (RLWE) problem over the involved ideal lattices is intractable, even in the post-quantum era.

Education and epilepsy: Examples of good practice and cooperation. Report of the IBE Commission on Education

Education for patients, for families, for professionals, and for officials is one of the most important tools for improving knowledge about epilepsy and fighting discrimination. There are many educational initiatives worldwide, but they are often known only at a local level. Studies on epilepsy educational programs are rare and therefore published to a limited extent. The newly established International Bureau for Epilepsy (IBE) Education Commission enforces the exchange of educational activities and best practices, discussing education content and topics, target groups, and their educational needs, timing, tutors, and funding. A brief review of examples of all continents will be given. The needs for studies and for more exchange and closer cooperation will be addressed with proposals for further actions.

Report on Pairing-based Cryptography

This report summarizes study results on pairing-based cryptography. The main purpose of the study is to form NIST's position on standardizing and recommending pairing-based cryptography schemes currently published in research literature and standardized in other standard bodies. The report reviews the mathematical background of pairings. This includes topics such as pairing-friendly elliptic curves and how to compute various pairings. It includes a brief introduction to existing identity-based encryption (IBE) schemes and other cryptographic schemes using pairing technology. The report provides a complete study of the current status of standard activities on pairing-based cryptographic schemes. It explores different application scenarios for pairing-based cryptography schemes. As an important aspect of adopting pairing-based schemes, the report also considers the challenges inherent in validation testing of cryptographic algorithms and modules. Based on the study, the report suggests an approach for including pairing-based cryptography schemes in the NIST cryptographic toolkit. The report also outlines several questions that will require further study if this approach is followed.

Metabolic engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum for the enhanced production of isopropanol-butanol-ethanol fuel mixture

Butanol is considered as a superior biofuel, which is conventionally produced by clostridial acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. Among ABE, only butanol and ethanol can be used as fuel alternatives. Coproduction of acetone thus causes lower yield of fuel alcohols. Thus, this study aimed at developing an improved Clostridium acetobutylicum strain possessing enhanced fuel alcohol production capability. For this, we previously developed a hyper ABE producing BKM19 strain was further engineered to convert acetone into isopropanol. The BKM19 strain was transformed with the plasmid pIPA100 containing the sadh (primary/secondary alcohol dehydrogenase) and hydG (putative electron transfer protein) genes from the Clostridium beijerinckii NRRL B593 cloned under the control of the thiolase promoter. The resulting BKM19 (pIPA100) strain produced 27.9 g/l isopropanol-butanol-ethanol (IBE) as a fuel alcohols with negligible amount of acetone (0.4 g/l) from 97.8 g/l glucose in lab-scale (2 l) batch fermentation. Thus, this metabolically engineered strain was able to produce 99% of total solvent produced as fuel alcohols. The scalability and stability of BKM19 (pIPA100) were evaluated at 200 l pilot-scale fermentation, which showed that the fuel alcohol yield could be improved to 0.37 g/g as compared to 0.29 g/g obtained at lab-scale fermentation, while attaining a similar titer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest titer of IBE achieved and the first report on the large scale fermentation of C. acetobutylicum for IBE production.