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1. ExecutionManager: A Software System to Control Execution of Third-Party Software That Performs Network Computations

   Carscadden, Henry L ; Machi, Lucas ; Kishore, Aparna ; Kuhlman, Chris J ; Machi, Dustin ; Ravi, S S. ( January 2021 , Winter Simulation Conference)

   We describe a software system called ExecutionManager (abbreviated EM) that controls the execution of third-party software (TPS) for analyzing networks. Based on a configuration file that contains a specification for the execution of each TPS, the system launches any number of stand-alone TPS codes, if the projected execution time and the graph size are within user-imposed limits. A system capability is to estimate the running time of a TPS code on a given network through regression analysis, to support execution decision-making by EM. We demonstrate the usefulness of EM in generating network structure parameters and distributions, and in extracting meta-data information from these results. We evaluate its performance on directed and undirected, simple and multi-edge graphs that range in size over seven orders of magnitude in numbers of edges, up to 1.5 billion edges. The software system is part of a cyberinfrastructure called net.science for network science. 

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2. Analysis of EM Fault Injection on Bit-sliced Number Theoretic Transform Software in Dilithium

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3583757  

   Singh, Richa ; Islam, Saad ; Sunar, Berk ; Schaumont, Patrick ( March 2023 , ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems)

   Bitslicing is a software implementation technique that treats an N-bit processor datapath as N parallel single-bit datapaths. Bitslicing is particularly useful to implement data-parallel algorithms, algorithms that apply the same operation sequence to every element of a vector. Indeed, a bit-wise processor instruction applies the same logical operation to every single-bit slice. A second benefit of bitsliced execution is that the natural spatial redundancy of bitsliced software can support countermeasures against fault attacks. A k-redundant program on an N-bit processor then runs as N/k parallel redundant slices. In this contribution, we combine these two benefits of bitslicing to implement a fault countermeasure for the number-theoretic transform (NTT). The NTT eiciently implements a polynomial multiplication. The internal symmetry of the NTT algorithm lends itself to a data-parallel implementation, and hence it is a good candidate for the redundantly bitsliced implementation. We implement a redundantly bitsliced NTT on an advanced 667MHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, and study the fault coverage for the protected NTT under optimized electromagnetic fault injection (EMFI). Our work brings two major contributions. First, we show for the irst time how to develop a redundantly bitsliced version of the NTT. We integrate the protected NTT into a full Dilithium signature sequence. Second, we demonstrate an EMFI analysis on a prototype implementation of the Dilithium signature sequence on ARM Cortex-M9. We perform a detailed EM fault-injection parameter search to optimize the location, intensity and timing of injected EM pulses. We demonstrate that, under optimized fault injection parameters, about 10% of the injected faults become potentially exploitable. However, the redundantly bitsliced NTT design is able to catch the majority of these potentially exploitable faults, even when the remainder of the Dilithium algorithm as well as the control low is left unprotected. To our knowledge, this is the irst demonstration of a bitslice-redundant design of the NTT that offers distributed fault detection throughout the execution of the algorithm. 

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3. Secure Software Leasing

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77886-6_17  

   Ananth, Prabhanjan and ( June 2021 , Advances in Cryptology‚ EUROCRYPT 2021)

   Formulating cryptographic definitions to protect against software piracy is an important research direction that has not received much attention. Since natural definitions using classical cryptography are impossible to achieve (as classical programs can always be copied), this directs us towards using techniques from quantum computing. The seminal work of Aaronson [CCC'09] introduced the notion of quantum copy-protection precisely to address the problem of software anti-piracy. However, despite being one of the most important problems in quantum cryptography, there are no provably secure solutions of quantum copy-protection known for {\em any} class of functions. We formulate an alternative definition for tackling software piracy, called quantum secure software leasing (QSSL). While weaker than quantum copy-protection, QSSL is still meaningful and has interesting applications in software anti-piracy. We present a construction of QSSL for a subclass of evasive circuits (that includes natural implementations of point functions, conjunctions with wild cards, and affine testers) based on concrete cryptographic assumptions. Our construction is the first provably secure solution, based on concrete cryptographic assumptions, for software anti-piracy. To complement our positive result, we show, based on cryptographic assumptions, that there is a class of quantum unlearnable functions for which QSSL does not exist. In particular, our impossibility result also rules out quantum copy-protection [Aaronson CCC'09] for an arbitrary class of quantum unlearnable functions; resolving an important open problem on the possibility of constructing copy-protection for arbitrary quantum unlearnable circuits. 

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4. Data Talks: Obesity-Related Influences on US Mortality Rates

   https://doi.org/10.22158/rhs.v3n3p65  

   D’Souza, Malcolm J. ; Bautista, Riza C. ; Wentzien, Derald E. ( June 2018 , Research in Health Science)

   Background: In the US, obesity is an epidemiologic challenge and the population fails to comprehend this complex public health issue. To evaluate underlying obesity-impact patterns on mortality rates, we data-mined the 1999-2016 Center for Disease Control WONDER database’s vital records.

   Methods: Adopting SAS programming, we scrutinized the mortality and population counts. Using ICD-10 diagnosis codes connected to overweight and obesity, we obtained the obesity-related crude and age-adjusted causes of death. To understand divergent and prevalence trends we compared and contrasted the tabulated obesity-influenced mortality rates with demographic information, gender, and age-related data.

   Key Results: From 1999 to 2016, the obesity-related age-adjusted mortality rates increased by 142%. The ICD-10 overweight and obesity-related death-certificate coding showed clear evidence that obesity factored in the male age-adjusted mortality rate increment to 173% and the corresponding female rate to 117%. It also disproportionately affected the nation-wide minority population death rates. Furthermore, excess weight distributions are coded as contributing features in the crude death rates for all decennial age-groups.

   Conclusions: The 1999-2016 data from ICD-10 death certificate coding for obesity-related conditions indicate that it is affecting all segments of the US population.

    

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5. Soil microbial community response to ectomycorrhizal dominance in diverse neotropical montane forests

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-023-01134-4  

   Edwards, Joseph D. ; Krichels, Alexander H. ; Seyfried, Georgia S. ; Dalling, James ; Kent, Angela D. ; Yang, Wendy H. ( January 2024 , Mycorrhiza)

   Ectomycorrhizal (EM) associations can promote the dominance of tree species in otherwise diverse tropical forests. These EM associations between trees and their fungal mutualists have important consequences for soil organic matter cycling, yet the influence of these EM-associated effects on surrounding microbial communities is not well known, particularly in neotropical forests. We examined fungal and prokaryotic community composition in surface soil samples from mixed arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EM) stands as well as stands dominated by EM-associatedOreomunnea mexicana(Juglandaceae) in four watersheds differing in soil fertility in the Fortuna Forest Reserve, Panama. We hypothesized that EM-dominated stands would support distinct microbial community assemblages relative to the mixed AM-EM stands due to differences in carbon and nitrogen cycling associated with the dominance of EM trees. We expected that this microbiome selection in EM-dominated stands would lead to lower overall microbial community diversity and turnover, with tighter correspondence between general fungal and prokaryotic communities. We measured fungal and prokaryotic community composition via high-throughput Illumina sequencing of theITS2(fungi) and16SrRNA (prokaryotic) gene regions. We analyzed differences in alpha and beta diversity between forest stands associated with different mycorrhizal types, as well as the relative abundance of fungal functional groups and various microbial taxa. We found that fungal and prokaryotic community composition differed based on stand mycorrhizal type. There was lower prokaryotic diversity and lower relative abundance of fungal saprotrophs and pathogens in EM-dominated than AM-EM mixed stands. However, contrary to our prediction, there was lower homogeneity for fungal communities in EM-dominated stands compared to mixed AM-EM stands. Overall, we demonstrate that EM-dominated tropical forest stands have distinct soil microbiomes relative to surrounding diverse forests, suggesting that EM fungi may filter microbial functional groups in ways that could potentially influence plant performance or ecosystem function.

    

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