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In the ever-evolving realm of cybersecurity, the increasing integration of Metaverse systems with cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, and Cloud Computing presents a host of new opportunities alongside significant challenges. This article employs a methodological approach that combines an extensive literature review with focused case study analyses to examine the changing cybersecurity landscape within these intersecting domains. The emphasis is particularly on the Metaverse, exploring its current state of cybersecurity, potential future developments, and the influential roles of AI, blockchain, and cloud technologies. Our thorough investigation assesses a range of cybersecurity standards and frameworks to determine their effectiveness in managing the risks associated with these emerging technologies. Special focus is directed towards the rapidly evolving digital economy of the Metaverse, investigating how AI and blockchain can enhance its cybersecurity infrastructure whilst acknowledging the complexities introduced by cloud computing. The results highlight significant gaps in existing standards and a clear necessity for regulatory advancements, particularly concerning blockchain's capability for self-governance and the earlystage development of the Metaverse. The article underscores the need for proactive regulatory involvement, stressing the importance of cybersecurity experts and policymakers adapting and preparing for the swift advancement of these technologies. Ultimately, this study offers a comprehensive overview of the current scenario, foresees future challenges, and suggests strategic directions for integrated cybersecurity within Metaverse systems utilising AI, blockchain, and cloud computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this study the authors present an innovative approach to resolving scalability and efficiency challenges in blockchain technology through the integration of Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). This approach helps to overcome the limitations of traditional blockchain systems, particularly in transaction processing. The classic blockchain has some problems as slow transaction processing and poor scalability. The authors offer Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) as a scalable and energy-efficient alternative. The paper outlines the development of a DAG-based blockchain model, utilizing Python and Flask alongside the Ed25519 cryptographic curve. It conducts a comparative analysis of DAG with traditional consensus mechanisms like Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, underscoring the efficiency and security benefits of employment of DAG. The research methodology includes an extensive literature review and the construction of a practical model to demonstrate DAG's applicability in blockchain networks. Particularly notable is the exploration of DAG's potential in Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems, addressing critical issues such as energy inefficiency and network communication challenges in existing consensus algorithms. The authors calculated the performance of the model and compared it with similar models on several evaluation criteria. The simulation results of our proposed model show an improvement in performance and security by minimizing end-to-end delay, time cost, energy consumption, and throughput. The model eliminates the limitations of classic blockchain systems, such as high latency and low scalability. It structures transactions and blocks as a DAG, which provides fast validation and high scalability without compromising security. The research demonstrates the transformative implications of DAG for advancing blockchain technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the "idealist" intellectual workshops behind the 20th-century liturgical architecture before and after the Second Vatican Council. These workshops established their concepts on the intriguingly historic presumption that, in order to refresh the Catholic liturgy, one must seek and return to the origins of Christianity. In other words, their worldview was characterized by the spirit of ressourcement, which was one of the great motivators of the new liturgical paradigm brought about by 1962. Ressourcement had both monastic and secular aspects to the invocation - or recreation - of the early apostolic communities by means of new spatial and contextual programs in contemporary church architecture. These programs were conceptually compound, and were often guided or implemented by the clergy itself. The study also sheds light on some of the 21th-century interpretations and the survival of the same ideas in today's architectural culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syukoro (Suki) Manabe's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded largely for his early work on one-dimensional models of "radiative–convective equilibrium" (RCE), which produced the first credible estimates of Earth's climate sensitivity. This article reviews that work and tries to identify those aspects that make it so distinctive. We argue that Manabe's model of RCE contained three crucial ingredients. These are (i) a tight convective coupling of the surface to the troposphere, (ii) an assumption of fixed relative humidity rather than fixed absolute humidity, and (iii) a sufficiently realistic representation of greenhouse gas radiative transfer. Previous studies had separately identified these key ingredients, but none had properly combined them. We then discuss each of these ingredients in turn, highlighting how subsequent research in the intervening decades has only cemented their importance for understanding global climate change. We close by reflecting on the elegance of Manabe's approach and its lasting value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Interest in older employees increases in times of population ageing. Previous research exploring the situation has underlined older employees' struggle with workplace changes. However, it has not explored their master narrative – the socially shared narrative about older employees that steers behaviour. This study explores this narrative and its differences across changing workplaces. It draws on Lyotard's suggestion that master narratives disintegrate in post-modern societies. Design/methodology/approach: This study conducts focus groups among older Finnish employees of an airline, postal service and social care. These groups experienced different kinds of workplace changes, namely mass layoffs, digitalisation and restructuring. The focus groups highlight the individuals' shared narratives, thereby pinpointing the master narrative. Findings: The master narrative describes how simultaneous changes at the workplace and in their health lead older employees to look for ways to exit their jobs. This narrative is largely stable across workplaces, showing no disintegration but some variation. Originality/value: This is the first study on the master narrative of older employees and its disintegration. To the authors' knowledge, it is also the first study to use focus groups to explore a master narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing interest in the study of research communities with the goal of optimizing their outcomes and impact. While current methods can predict future trends, they offer little insight about the causes of the trends. However, causal insight is important for strategic decision making to improve a community. This paper presents a new method to predict the possible causes for inefficiencies in a community by relating them to disconnections between trends, like trends in the number of publications, patents, citations, and so on. The method combines traditional scientometric and webometric metrics and metric predictions with a recent model for trend analysis in a community. The proposed method was used to analyze electronic design automation (EDA) domain. The analysis showed intriguing disconnections between the trends of the number of papers, number of granted patents, and impact of its main publications. The analysis suggests a slightly decreasing impact and visibility of EDA, while having less novel, commonly-accepted knowledge in the area. The gained insight suggests three possible strategic decisions to improve EDA community: avoiding to ignore new ideas, reducing the complexity of framed problems, and keeping a minimal gap between real-life needs and academic solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attribute-based encryption (ABE) is an access control mechanism that ensures efficient data sharing among dynamic groups of users by setting up access structures indicating who can access what. However, ABE suffers from expensive computation and privacy issues in resource-constrained environments such as IoT devices. In this paper, we present SHARE-ABE, a novel collaborative approach for preserving privacy that is built on top of Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE). Our approach uses Fog computing to outsource the most laborious decryption operations to Fog nodes. The latter collaborate to partially decrypt the data using an original and efficient chained architecture. Additionally, our approach preserves the privacy of the access policy by introducing false attributes. Furthermore, we introduce a new construction of a collaboration attribute that allows users within the same group to combine their attributes while satisfying the access policy. Experiments and analyses of the security properties demonstrate that the proposed scheme is secure and efficient especially for resource-constrained IoT devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motor imagery-based brain-computer interfaces (MI-BCI) have been proposed as a means for stroke rehabilitation, which combined with virtual reality allows for introducing game-based interactions into rehabilitation. However, the control of the MI-BCI may be difficult to obtain and users may face poor performance which frustrates them and potentially affects their motivation to use the technology. Decreases in motivation could be reduced by increasing the users' sense of agency over the system. The aim of this study was to understand whether embodiment (ownership) of a hand depicted in virtual reality can enhance the sense of agency to reduce frustration in an MI-BCI task. Twenty-two healthy participants participated in a within-subject study where their sense of agency was compared in two different embodiment experiences: 1) avatar hand (with body), or 2) abstract blocks. Both representations closed with a similar motion for spatial congruency and popped a balloon as a result. The hand/blocks were controlled through an online MI-BCI. Each condition consisted of 30 trials of MI-activation of the avatar hand/blocks. After each condition a questionnaire probed the participants' sense of agency, ownership, and frustration. Afterwards, a semi-structured interview was performed where the participants elaborated on their ratings. Both conditions supported similar levels of MI-BCI performance. A significant correlation between ownership and agency was observed (r = 0.47, p = 0.001). As intended, the avatar hand yielded much higher ownership than the blocks. When controlling for performance, ownership increased sense of agency. In conclusion, designers of BCI-based rehabilitation applications can draw on anthropomorphic avatars for the visual mapping of the trained limb to improve ownership. While not While not reducing frustration ownership can improve perceived agency given sufficient BCI performance. In future studies the findings should be validated in stroke patients since they may perceive agency and ownership differently than able-bodied users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to detect and correct node localization anomalies in wireless sensor networks, a hierarchical nonuniform clustering algorithm is proposed. This paper designs a centroid iterative maximum likelihood estimation location algorithm based on nonuniformity analysis, selects the nonuniformity analysis algorithm, gives the flowchart of node location algorithm, and simulates the distribution of nodes with MATLAB. Firstly, the algorithm divides the nodes in the network into different network levels according to the number of hops required to reach the sink node. According to the average residual energy of nodes in each layer, the sink node selects the nodes with higher residual energy in each layer of the network as candidate cluster heads and selects a certain number of nodes with lower residual energy as additional candidate cluster heads. Then, at each level, the candidate cluster heads are elected to produce the final cluster heads. Finally, by controlling the communication range between cluster head and cluster members, clusters of different sizes are formed, and clusters at the level closer to the sink node have a smaller scale. By simulating the improved centroid iterative algorithm, the values of the optimal iteration parameters α and η are obtained. Based on the analysis of the positioning errors of the improved centroid iterative algorithm and the maximum likelihood estimation algorithm, the value of the algorithm conversion factor is selected. Aiming at the problem of abnormal nodes that may occur in the process of ranging, a hybrid node location algorithm is further proposed. The algorithm uses the ℓ 2 , 1 norm to smooth the structured anomalies in the ranging information and realizes accurate positioning while detecting node anomalies. Experimental results show that the algorithm can accurately determine the uniformity of distribution, achieve good positioning effect in complex environment, and detect abnormal nodes well. In this paper, the hybrid node location algorithm is extended to the node location problem in large-scale scenes, and a good location effect is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

His I Getting to Zero i contains nuggets, including this: "The exceptionally eloquent personal statement by General George Lee Butler, former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Strategic Command and a member of the Canberra Commission, to the State of the World Forum in October 1996, in which he explains how his 30-year career with U.S. nuclear forces - first implementing this country's nuclear weapon policies and later helping shape and defend them - led him finally to the conclusion that those policies must be abandoned and the nuclear weapons themselves abolished."[48] In fact, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the United Nations on July 7, 2017, just came into force on January 22, 2021, with the number of signatory states reaching 86.[49],[50] It remains largely symbolic, however, since none of the nuclear weapon states and none of the NATO members with the exception of the Netherlands are signatories to this treaty. The treaty allows nuclear-weapons states, those that had built and tested atomic weapons before January 1967, to continue to retain the nuclear weapon, in return for which they will share information on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy to the non-nuclear-weapon states. B. Derosa and A. Nicolas, "The President and Nuclear Weapons: Authorities, Limits, and Process", I NTI i (2019), http://www.nti.org 45 D. French, "We Have Enough Checks on the President's Power to Order a Nuclear Strike", I National Review i (2017), https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/we-have-enough-checks-presidents-power-order-nuclear-strike 46 E. Eaves, "Why Is America Getting a New $100 Billion Nuclear Weapon?". [Extracted from the article]