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1. "If I could do this, I feel anyone could:" The Design and Evaluation of a Secondary Authentication Factor Manager

   Smith, Garrett; Yadav, Tarun; Dutson, Jonathan; Ruoti, Scott; Seamons, Kent (August 2023, 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23))

   Two-factor authentication (2FA) defends against account compromise by protecting an account with both a password—the primary authentication factor—and a device or resource that is hard to steal—the secondary authentication factor (SAF). However, prior research shows that users need help registering their SAFs with websites and successfully enabling 2FA. To address these issues, we propose the concept of a SAF manager that helps users manage SAFs through their entire life cycle: setup, authentication, removal, replacement, and auditing. We design and implement two proof-of-concept prototypes. In a between-subjects user study (N=60), we demonstrate that our design improves users' ability to correctly and quickly setup and remove a SAF on their accounts. Qualitative results show that users responded very positively to the SAF manager and were enthusiastic about its ability to help them rapidly replace a SAF. Furthermore, our SAF manager prevented fatal errors that users experienced when not using the manager. 

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2. Hijacking time: How Ophiocordyceps fungi could be using ant host clocks to manipulate behavior

   https://doi.org/10.1111/pim.12909  

   de Bekker, Charissa; Das, Biplabendu (February 2022, Parasite Immunology)

   Abstracts Ophiocordycepsfungi manipulate ant behaviour as a transmission strategy. Conspicuous changes in the daily timing of disease phenotypes suggest thatOphiocordycepsand other manipulators could be hijacking the host clock. We discuss the available data that support the notion thatOphiocordycepsfungi could be hijacking ant host clocks and consider how altering daily behavioural rhythms could benefit the fungal infection cycle. By reviewing time‐course transcriptomics data for the parasite and the host, we argue thatOphiocordycepshas a light‐entrainable clock that might drive daily expression of candidate manipulation genes. Moreover, ant rhythms are seemingly highly plastic and involved in behavioural division of labour, which could make them susceptible to parasite hijacking. To provisionally test whether the expression of ant behavioural plasticity and rhythmicity genes could be affected by fungal manipulation, we performed a gene co‐expression network analysis on ant time‐course data and linked it to available behavioural manipulation data. We found that behavioural plasticity genes reside in the same modules as those affected during fungal manipulation. These modules showed significant connectivity with rhythmic gene modules, suggesting thatOphiocordycepscould be indirectly affecting the expression of those genes as well. 

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3. Integrated data could augment resilience

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw2236  

   Sills, Jennifer; Vahedifard, Farshid; Ermagun, Alireza; Mortezaei, Kimia; AghaKouchak, Amir (January 2019, Science)
4. “I wish I could do more”: A qualitative meta-analysis of early career engineers' perceptions of agency in their workplaces.

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--31920  

   Lutz, B.; Cannes, N.; Brunhaver, S. (June 2019, Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference, 2019)

   Engineering students graduate from their programs with a broad range of skills that are set by professional societies, industry recommendations, and other stakeholders in student success. But when those engineers enter their jobs, how are those skills utilized and nurtured by the organizations they enter? The purpose of this paper is to present a cross-sectional, secondary qualitative analysis of research exploring the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they move from student to professional. Of particular interest were the ways engineers describe their autonomy or sense of choice, the way engineers recognize and make sense of their organizations’ values, and the alignment (or lack thereof) between personal values and those of their organization. To do so, qualitative data sets from three different studies of engineers’ experiences at various stages in their professional trajectories were combined and thematically analyzed, producing four major themes that speak to the ways engineers perceive their sense of agency in their work experiences. Looking across data sets, themes emerged regarding empowerment, organizational fit, and workplace expectations. While these themes were common across the studies included in the analysis, the way the themes manifested across data sets raises interesting questions about the formation of engineers and the socialization experiences that contribute to that formation. As research on engineering practice continues to develop, it is important that researchers consider where engineers are within their career trajectory and how that influences their perceptions about the work they do and the agency they have within organizations. 

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5. The little shrimp that could: phylogeography of the circumtropical Stenopus hispidus (Crustacea: Decapoda), reveals divergent Atlantic and Pacific lineages

   https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4409  

   Dudoit, ‘Ale‘alani; Iacchei, Matthew; Coleman, Richard R.; Gaither, Michelle R.; Browne, William E.; Bowen, Brian W.; Toonen, Robert J. (January 2018, PeerJ)

   The banded coral shrimp, Stenopus hispidus (Crustacea: Decapoda: Stenopodidea) is a popular marine ornamental species with a circumtropical distribution. The planktonic larval stage lasts ∼120–253 days, indicating considerable dispersal potential, but few studies have investigated genetic connectivity on a global scale in marine invertebrates. To resolve patterns of divergence and phylogeography of S. hispidus , we surveyed 525 bp of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) from 198 individuals sampled at 10 locations across ∼27,000 km of the species range. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that S. hispidus has a Western Atlantic lineage and a widely distributed Indo-Pacific lineage, separated by sequence divergence of 2.1%. Genetic diversity is much higher in the Western Atlantic ( h = 0.929; π  = 0.004) relative to the Indo-Pacific ( h = 0.105; π  < 0.001), and coalescent analyses indicate that the Indo-Pacific population expanded more recently (95% HPD (highest posterior density) = 60,000–400,000 yr) than the Western Atlantic population (95% HPD = 300,000–760,000 yr). Divergence of the Western Atlantic and Pacific lineages is estimated at 710,000–1.8 million years ago, which does not readily align with commonly implicated colonization events between the ocean basins. The estimated age of populations contradicts the prevailing dispersal route for tropical marine biodiversity (Indo-Pacific to Atlantic) with the oldest and most diverse population in the Atlantic, and a recent population expansion with a single common haplotype shared throughout the vast Indian and Pacific oceans. In contrast to the circumtropical fishes, this diminutive reef shrimp challenges our understanding of conventional dispersal capabilities of marine species. 

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