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Developmental Research in Space: Predicting Adult Neurobehavioral Phenotypes via Metabolomic Imaging

As human habitation and eventual colonization of space becomes an inevitable reality, there is a necessity to understand how organisms develop over the life span in the space environment. Microgravity, altered CO2, radiation and psychological stress are some of the key factors that could affect mammalian reproduction and development in space, however there is a paucity of information on this topic. Here we combine early (neonatal) in vivo spectroscopic imaging with an adult emotionality assay following a common obstetric complication (prenatal asphyxia) likely to occur during gestation in space. The neural metabolome is sensitive to alteration by degenerative changes and developmental disorders, thus we hypothesized that that early neonatal neurometabolite profiles can predict adult response to novelty. Late gestation fetal rats were exposed to moderate asphyxia by occluding the blood supply feeding one of the rats pair uterine horns for 15min. Blood supply to the opposite horn was not occluded (within-litter cesarean control). Further comparisons were made with vaginal (natural) birth controls. In one-week old neonates, we measured neurometabolites in three brain areas (i.e., striatum, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus). Adult perinatally-asphyxiated offspring exhibited greater anxiety-like behavioral phenotypes (as measured the composite neurobehavioral assay involving open field activity, responses to novel object, quantification of fecal droppings, and resident-intruder tests of social behavior). Further, early neurometabolite profiles predicted adult responses. Non-invasive MRS screening of mammalian offspring is likely to advance ground-based space analogue studies informing mammalian reproduction in space, and achieving high-priority multigenerational research that will enable studies of the first truly space-developed mammals.

Schorn, Julia M.↗

Developmental Research in Space: Predicting Adult Neurobehavioral Phenotypes via Metabolomic Imaging

As human habitation and eventual colonization of space becomes an inevitable reality, there is a necessity to understand how organisms develop over the life span in the space environment. Microgravity, altered CO2, radiation and psychological stress are some of the key factors that could affect mammalian reproduction and development in space, however there is a paucity of information on this topic. Here we combine early (neonatal) in vivo spectroscopic imaging with an adult emotionality assay following a common obstetric complication (prenatal asphyxia) likely to occur during gestation in space. The neural metabolome is sensitive to alteration by degenerative changes and developmental disorders, thus we hypothesized that that early neonatal neurometabolite profiles can predict adult response to novelty. Late gestation fetal rats were exposed to moderate asphyxia by occluding the blood supply feeding one of the rats pair uterine horns for 15min. Blood supply to the opposite horn was not occluded (within-litter cesarean control). Further comparisons were made with vaginal (natural) birth controls. In one-week old neonates, we measured neurometabolites in three brain areas (i.e., striatum, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus). Adult perinatally-asphyxiated offspring exhibited greater anxiety-like behavioral phenotypes (as measured the composite neurobehavioral assay involving open field activity, responses to novel object, quantification of fecal droppings, and resident-intruder tests of social behavior). Further, early neurometabolite profiles predicted adult responses. Non-invasive MRS screening of mammalian offspring is likely to advance ground-based space analogue studies informing mammalian reproduction in space, and achieving high-priority.

rodent development spacefligh↗

Toward Synthesis, Analysis, and Certification of Security Protocols

Implemented security protocols are basically pieces of software which are used to (a) authenticate the other communication partners, (b) establish a secure communication channel between them (using insecure communication media), and (c) transfer data between the communication partners in such a way that these data only available to the desired receiver, but not to anyone else. Such an implementation usually consists of the following components: the protocol-engine, which controls in which sequence the messages of the protocol are sent over the network, and which controls the assembly/disassembly and processing (e.g., decryption) of the data. the cryptographic routines to actually encrypt or decrypt the data (using given keys), and t,he interface to the operating system and to the application. For a correct working of such a security protocol, all of these components must work flawlessly. Many formal-methods based techniques for the analysis of a security protocols have been developed. They range from using specific logics (e.g.: BAN-logic [4], or higher order logics [12] to model checking [2] approaches. In each approach, the analysis tries to prove that no (or at least not a modeled intruder) can get access to secret data. Otherwise, a scenario illustrating the &tack may be produced. Despite the seeming simplicity of security protocols ("only" a few messages are sent between the protocol partners in order to ensure a secure communication), many flaws have been detected. Unfortunately, even a perfect protocol engine does not guarantee flawless working of a security protocol, as incidents show. Many break-ins and security vulnerabilities are caused by exploiting errors in the implementation of the protocol engine or the underlying operating system. Attacks using buffer-overflows are a very common class of such attacks. Errors in the implementation of exception or error handling can open up additional vulnerabilities. For example, on a website with a log-in screen: multiple tries with invalid passwords caused the expected error message (too many retries). but let the user nevertheless pass. Finally, security can be compromised by silly implementation bugs or design decisions. In a commercial VPN software, all calls to the encryption routines were incidentally replaced by stubs, probably during factory testing. The product worked nicely. and the error (an open VPN) would have gone undetected, if a team member had not inspected the low-level traffic out of curiosity. Also, the use secret proprietary encryption routines can backfire, because such algorithms often exhibit weaknesses which can be exploited easily (see e.g., DVD encoding). Summarizing, there is large number of possibilities to make errors which can compromise the security of a protocol. In today s world with short time-to-market and the use of security protocols in open and hostile networks for safety-critical applications (e.g., power or air-traffic control), such slips could lead to catastrophic situations. Thus, formal methods and automatic reasoning techniques should not be used just for the formal proof of absence of an attack, but they ought to be used to provide an end-to-end tool-supported framework for security software. With such an approach all required artifacts (code, documentation, test cases) , formal analyses, and reliable certification will be generated automatically, given a single, high level specification. By a combination of program synthesis, formal protocol analysis, certification; and proof-carrying code, this goal is within practical reach, since all the important technologies for such an approach actually exist and only need to be assembled in the right way.

Schumann, Johann↗