The Research Integrity Arms Race and the Role of Specialists to maintain the Integrity of the published Record

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Kersjes
Keyword(s):  
Research Integrity ◽  
Arms Race

scholarly journals The state of health research governance in Africa: what do we know and how can we improve?

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet Nabyonga-Orem ◽  
James Avoka Asamani ◽  
Micheal Makanga
Keyword(s):  
Health Research ◽  
Research Collaboration ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
Research Governance ◽  
World Health ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Scientific Review

Abstract Background The developments in global health, digital technology, and persistent health systems challenges, coupled with global commitments like attainment of universal health coverage, have elevated the role of health research in low- and middle-income countries. However, there is a need to strengthen health research governance and create a conducive environment that can promote ethics and research integrity and increase public trust in research. Objective To assess whether the necessary structures are in place to ensure health research governance. Methods Employing a cross-sectional survey, we collected data on research governance components from 35 Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region. Data were analysed using basic descriptive and comparative analysis. Results Eighteen out of 35 countries had legislation to regulate the conduct of health research, while this was lacking in 12 countries. Some legislation was either grossly outdated or too limiting in scope, while some countries had multiple laws. Health research policies and strategies were in place in 16 and 15 countries, respectively, while research priority lists were available in 25 countries. Overlapping mandates of institutions responsible for health research partly explained the lack of strategic documents in some countries. The majority of countries had ethical committees performing a dual role of ethical and scientific review. Research partnership frameworks were available to varying degrees to govern both in-country and north–south research collaboration. Twenty-five countries had a focal point and unit within the ministries of health (MoH) to coordinate research. Conclusion Governance structures must be adaptive to embrace new developments in science. Further, strong coordination is key to ensuring comprehensiveness and complementarity in both research development and generation of evidence. The majority of committees perform a dual role of ethics and scientific review, and these need to ensure representation of relevant expertise. Opportunities that accrue from collaborative research need to be seized through strong MoH leadership and clear partnership frameworks that guide negotiations.

scholarly journals Getting ahead of the Arms Race: Hothousing the Coevolution of VirusTotal with a Packer

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 395
Author(s):  
Héctor D. Menéndez ◽  
David Clark ◽  
Earl T. Barr
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Evolutionary Computation ◽  
Malware Detection ◽  
Cloud Service ◽  
False Positives ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
System Calls ◽  
A New Technique ◽  
Coevolutionary Arms Race

Malware detection is in a coevolutionary arms race where the attackers and defenders are constantly seeking advantage. This arms race is asymmetric: detection is harder and more expensive than evasion. White hats must be conservative to avoid false positives when searching for malicious behaviour. We seek to redress this imbalance. Most of the time, black hats need only make incremental changes to evade them. On occasion, white hats make a disruptive move and find a new technique that forces black hats to work harder. Examples include system calls, signatures and machine learning. We present a method, called Hothouse, that combines simulation and search to accelerate the white hat’s ability to counter the black hat’s incremental moves, thereby forcing black hats to perform disruptive moves more often. To realise Hothouse, we evolve EEE, an entropy-based polymorphic packer for Windows executables. Playing the role of a black hat, EEE uses evolutionary computation to disrupt the creation of malware signatures. We enter EEE into the detection arms race with VirusTotal, the most prominent cloud service for running anti-virus tools on software. During our 6 month study, we continually improved EEE in response to VirusTotal, eventually learning a packer that produces packed malware whose evasiveness goes from an initial 51.8% median to 19.6%. We report both how well VirusTotal learns to detect EEE-packed binaries and how well VirusTotal forgets in order to reduce false positives. VirusTotal’s tools learn and forget fast, actually in about 3 days. We also show where VirusTotal focuses its detection efforts, by analysing EEE’s variants.

scholarly journals From Capsids to Complexes: Expanding the Role of TRIM5α in the Restriction of Divergent RNA Viruses and Elements

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 446
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Rose ◽  
Stephanie J. Spada ◽  
Rebecca Broeckel ◽  
Kristin L. McNally ◽  
Vanessa M. Hirsch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Immunodeficiency Virus ◽  
Molecular Basis ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Rna Viruses ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Innate Immune ◽  
Immunodeficiency Virus ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Hiv 1

An evolutionary arms race has been ongoing between retroviruses and their primate hosts for millions of years. Within the last century, a zoonotic transmission introduced the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1), a retrovirus, to the human population that has claimed the lives of millions of individuals and is still infecting over a million people every year. To counteract retroviruses such as this, primates including humans have evolved an innate immune sensor for the retroviral capsid lattice known as TRIM5α. Although the molecular basis for its ability to restrict retroviruses is debated, it is currently accepted that TRIM5α forms higher-order assemblies around the incoming retroviral capsid that are not only disruptive for the virus lifecycle, but also trigger the activation of an antiviral state. More recently, it was discovered that TRIM5α restriction is broader than previously thought because it restricts not only the human retroelement LINE-1, but also the tick-borne flaviviruses, an emergent group of RNA viruses that have vastly different strategies for replication compared to retroviruses. This review focuses on the underlying mechanisms of TRIM5α-mediated restriction of retroelements and flaviviruses and how they differ from the more widely known ability of TRIM5α to restrict retroviruses.

Beyond “Compliance”: The Role of Institutional Culture in Promoting Research Integrity

2010 ◽  
Vol 85 (8) ◽  
pp. 1296-1302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Geller ◽  
Alison Boyce ◽  
Daniel E. Ford ◽  
Jeremy Sugarman
Keyword(s):  
Research Integrity ◽  
Institutional Culture

scholarly journals Coevolving Predator and Prey Robots: Do “Arms Races” Arise in Artificial Evolution?

1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Nolfi ◽  
Dario Floreano
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Robotics ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Artificial Evolution ◽  
Arms Races ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Evolutionary Arms Race ◽  
Adaptive Power ◽  
Competing Populations

Coevolution (i.e., the evolution of two or more competing populations with coupled fitness) has several features that may potentially enhance the power of adaptation of artificial evolution. In particular, as discussed by Dawkins and Krebs [3], competing populations may reciprocally drive one another to increasing levels of complexity by producing an evolutionary “arms race.” In this article we will investigate the role of coevolution in the context of evolutionary robotics. In particular, we will try to understand in what conditions coevolution can lead to “arms races.” Moreover, we will show that in some cases artificial coevolution has a higher adaptive power than simple evolution. Finally, by analyzing the dynamics of coevolved populations, we will show that in some circumstances well-adapted individuals would be better advised to adopt simple but easily modifiable strategies suited for the current competitor strategies rather than incorporate complex and general strategies that may be effective against a wide range of opposing counter-strategies.

scholarly journals Monkeying around with venom: an increased resistance to α-neurotoxins supports an evolutionary arms race between Afro-Asian primates and sympatric cobras

BMC Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Harris ◽  
K. Anne-Isola Nekaris ◽  
Bryan G. Fry
Keyword(s):  
Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors ◽  
Acetylcholine Receptors ◽  
Selection Pressure ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Geographic Ranges ◽  
Venomous Snakes ◽  
Snake Detection ◽  
Coevolutionary Arms Race

Abstract Background Snakes and primates have a multi-layered coevolutionary history as predators, prey, and competitors with each other. Previous work has explored the Snake Detection Theory (SDT), which focuses on the role of snakes as predators of primates and argues that snakes have exerted a selection pressure for the origin of primates’ visual systems, a trait that sets primates apart from other mammals. However, primates also attack and kill snakes and so snakes must simultaneously avoid primates. This factor has been recently highlighted in regard to the movement of hominins into new geographic ranges potentially exerting a selection pressure leading to the evolution of spitting in cobras on three independent occasions. Results Here, we provide further evidence of coevolution between primates and snakes, whereby through frequent encounters and reciprocal antagonism with large, diurnally active neurotoxic elapid snakes, Afro-Asian primates have evolved an increased resistance to α-neurotoxins, which are toxins that target the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. In contrast, such resistance is not found in Lemuriformes in Madagascar, where venomous snakes are absent, or in Platyrrhini in the Americas, where encounters with neurotoxic elapids are unlikely since they are relatively small, fossorial, and nocturnal. Within the Afro-Asian primates, the increased resistance toward the neurotoxins was significantly amplified in the last common ancestor of chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans (clade Homininae). Comparative testing of venoms from Afro-Asian and American elapid snakes revealed an increase in α-neurotoxin resistance across Afro-Asian primates, which was likely selected against cobra venoms. Through structure-activity studies using native and mutant mimotopes of the α-1 nAChR receptor orthosteric site (loop C), we identified the specific amino acids responsible for conferring this increased level of resistance in hominine primates to the α-neurotoxins in cobra venom. Conclusion We have discovered a pattern of primate susceptibility toward α-neurotoxins that supports the theory of a reciprocal coevolutionary arms-race between venomous snakes and primates.

scholarly journals Role of the CSTO in Strengthening Regional Security

2021 ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Andrey V. Rusakovich
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
State University ◽  
Defense System ◽  
Missile Defense ◽  
Military Exercises ◽  
The Military

In 2021, Russia and Belarus are planning to hold a record number of exercises. In particular, large-scale strategic maneuvers "West-2021" will be held on the territory of Belarus. The focus on the western borders is not accidental: according to the military ministers of the two countries, the situation there is not calm. At the level of the CSTO, NATO is active in Eastern Europe in building up the missile defense system and increasing the intensity of military exercises. According to Secretary General of the organization Stanislav Zasya, the confrontational course of the alliance creates dangerous preconditions for a new arms race and the alliance is forced "to take adequate measures. Andrei Rusakovich, professor of Belarussian State University, explained in an interview with Eurasia.Expert why Russia and Belarus are increasing military cooperation and how cooperation within the CSTO fits into these tasks.

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