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1. A Complete Study of P.K.I. (PKI’s Known Incidents)

   https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3425554  

   Serrano, Nicolas; Hadan, Hilda; Camp, L. Jean (September 2019, SSRN Electronic Journal)

   null (Ed.)

   In this work, we report on a comprehensive analysis of PKI resulting from Certificate Authorities’ (CAs) behavior using over 1300 instances. We found several cases where CAs designed business models that favored the issuance of digital certificates over the guidelines of the CA Forum, root management programs, and other PKI requirements. Examining PKI from the perspective of business practices, we identify a taxonomy of failures and identify systemic vulnerabilities in the governance and practices in PKI. Notorious cases include the “backdating” of digital certificates, the issuance of these for MITM attempts, the lack of verification of a requester’s identity, and the unscrupulous issuance of rogue certificates. We performed a detailed study of 379 of these 1300 incidents. Using this sample, we developed a taxonomy of the different types of incidents and their causes. For each incident, we determined if the incident was disclosed by the problematic CA. We also noted the Root CA and the year of the incident. We identify the failures in terms of business practices, geography, and outcomes from CAs. We analyzed the role of Root Program Owners (RPOs) and differentiated their policies. We identified serial and chronic offenders in the PKI trusted root programs. Some of these were distrusted by RPOs, while others remain being trusted despite failures. We also identified cases where the concentration of power of RPOs was arguably a contributing factor in the incident. We identify these cases where there is a risk of concentration of power and the resulting conflict of interests. Our research is the first comprehensive academic study addressing all verified reported incidents. We approach this not from a machine learning or statistical perspective but, rather, we identify each reported public incident with a focus on identifying patterns of individual lapses. Here we also have a specific focus on the role of CAs and RPOs. Building on this study, we identify the issues in incentive structures that are contributors to the problems. 

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2. Understanding the Impact of Equitable Collaborations between Science Institutions and Community-Based Organizations: Improving Science through Community-Led Research

   https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac001  

   Ricalde, María Cecilia; Annoni, John; Bonney, Rick; Bonta, J Marcelo; Campbell, Patricia B; Castelli, Mateo Luna; Cheatom, Makeda; Crum, Catherine; Valadez, Juan Flores; Foli, Yao Augustine; et al (March 2022, BioScience)

   Abstract To advance justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in science, we must first understand and improve the dominant-culture frameworks that impede progress and, second, we must intentionally create more equitable models. The present authors call ourselves the ICBOs and Allies Workgroup (ICBOs stands for independent community-based organizations), and we represent communities historically excluded from the sciences. Together with institutional allies and advisors, we began our research because we wanted our voices to be heard, and we hoped to bring a different perspective to doing science with and not on communities. We created a community framework to guide our research and we led all aspects of our work, from creating research protocols to analyzing and interpreting the data to disseminating the results. We share our research framework, methods, and results so that science institutions can better understand how to intentionally create more equitable research partnerships with our communities. 

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3. Introduction: Caring for Equitable Relations in Interdisciplinary Collaborations

   https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v9i2.41070  

   Carrigan, Coleen; Wylie, Caitlin D (November 2023, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience)

   Collaborative research between scholars of science and technology studies (STS)and scholars of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is a growing trend. The papers assembled in thisSpecial Section offer both embodied and empirical knowledge on how ethnographers negotiate our roles in integrative research when constrained by what our technoscientific collaborators value, what funders demand, what our home institutions expect, what we want to learn from the worlds we study, and the social transformations we envision in science and society. We grapple with how we as ethnographers can best balance caring for the communities we study, the ones we serve, and the ones we identify with. We take care that knowledge making is political. Race, gender, class, and ability status of scholars intersect with the organizational, institutional, and cultural contexts in which we practice science to shape and be shaped by entrenched power relations.Through a feminist politics of care, this collection transforms tensions in interdisciplinary collaborations into resources that enlarge our understandings of what these collaborations are like for STS ethnographers, make visible certain labors within them and, crucially, enrich our vision for what we want these collaborations to be. 

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4. Finite element algorithms for nonlocal minimal graphs

   https://doi.org/10.3934/mine.2022016  

   Borthagaray, Juan Pablo; Li, Wenbo; Nochetto, Ricardo H. (January 2021, Mathematics in Engineering)

   null (Ed.)

   We discuss computational and qualitative aspects of the fractional Plateau and the prescribed fractional mean curvature problems on bounded domains subject to exterior data being a subgraph. We recast these problems in terms of energy minimization, and we discretize the latter with piecewise linear finite elements. For the computation of the discrete solutions, we propose and study a gradient flow and a Newton scheme, and we quantify the effect of Dirichlet data truncation. We also present a wide variety of numerical experiments that illustrate qualitative and quantitative features of fractional minimal graphs and the associated discrete problems. 

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5. Extremely precise age and metallicity of the open cluster NGC 2506 using detached eclipsing binaries

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2855  

   Knudstrup, E; Grundahl, F; Brogaard, K; Slumstrup, D; Orosz, J A; Sandquist, E L; Jessen-Hansen, J; Lund, M N; Arentoft, T; Tronsgaard, R; et al (October 2020, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   null (Ed.)

   ABSTRACT Accurate stellar parameters of stars in open clusters can help constrain models of stellar structure and evolution. Here, we wish to determine the age and metallicity content of the open cluster NGC 2506. To this end, we investigated three detached eclipsing binaries (DEBs; V2032, V4, and V5) for which we determined their masses and radii, as well as four red giant branch stars for which we determined their effective temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities. Three of the stars in the DEBs have masses close to the cluster turn-off mass, allowing for extremely precise age determination. Comparing the values for the masses and radii of the binaries to BaSTI (a Bag of Stellar Tracks and Isochrones) isochrones, we estimated a cluster age of 2.01 ± 0.10 Gyr. This does depend on the models used in the comparison, where we have found that the inclusion of convective core-overshooting is necessary to properly model the cluster. From red giant branch stars, we determined values for the effective temperatures, the surface gravities, and the metallicities. From these we find a cluster metallicity of −0.36 ± 0.10 dex. Using this value and the values for the effective temperatures, we determine the reddening to be E(b − y) = 0.057 ± 0.004 mag. Furthermore, we derived the distance to the cluster from Gaia parallaxes and found 3.101 ± 0.017 kpc, and we have performed a radial velocity membership determination for stars in the field of the cluster. Finally, we report on the detection of oscillation signals in γ Dor and δ Scuti members in data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, including the possible detection of solar-like oscillations in two of the red giants. 

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