In this module, we'll talk about the schema of the web-based database application, we'll talk about the architecture and the architecture specifically the three-tier architecture, the data access layer. So we will be talking about the three-tier architecture a number of times. This is very keyword over here and this three-tier architecture will be looking at from different angles, from different aspects, because this is the core of a web-based application. And we look at that three-tier architecture from different aspects so as to enhance your understanding, to enhance your comprehension about this web-based database applications. So now I will explain it to you diagrammatically and things will become more simple and more understandable and of course I will enhance that understanding with more examples. So these are the design considerations for a three-tier architecture. So you can call it this is the client tier, this is the web server tier and this over here is the database tier. Now these divisions are logical, these divisions are logical and these divisions are loosely coupled, okay. They are logical as well as loosely coupled and these are the boundaries of these divisions and these makes the understanding of the concept more simple, more understandable. So we have this data component part. Now remember that these two things they are not the same. This is the actual data. This is the data aspects of the web server. These are the business logic of the web server and this is you. You are the client over here, you are the client over here. So the client is the browser. It is the browser and it could be many browsers are there and of course these are the cross cutting things. So we will cover all of these aspects in the subsequent modules in the subsequent slides. Now let's look at the web application framework. The framework which these are some of the components, these are the aspects which need to be addressed for a web-based database application. Over here I have shown you about 10 of them. They are more than 10 and I will discuss all of them in detail. Let's look at the authentication aspect also. Now this authentication is at the trust boundary and this authentication ensures that there are no issues. Actually there are issues if the passwords are stored as text files. So the issues of passwords stored as text files are covered in this authentication. Then is the authorization. In the authorization also this is also at the trust boundary. So this is also covered and of course the exception management. For the issue of exception management could be say for example that enough detail is not stored when an exception takes place and of course the list goes on. I will cover all of these things when we come to the main part, the main component of this module. Then there are four main layers over here. These are the layers over here. So we have the presentation layer, the business layer, the data layer and the service layer. The presentation layer takes care of what you see on your screen, how you interact with the web application and the business layer is where the business logic is built. This is the most important part because that's where the programming takes place. This is the middle tier, this is the web server tier where a web programming language is used such as PHP which we covered in this course and then is the data layer. The data layer is where you access the data itself, the database and then the service layer. Service layer takes into account when you are hosting your application at a certain level with a certain service provider which I discussed in the last module. Then is the testing and testability. This means that how testing scenarios are built, how testing takes place and how testing results can be evaluated. Then are the performance considerations, these are the non-functional requirements in terms of CPU, in terms of memory, in terms of clock cycles and so on. Then are the security considerations. Now you can see the slight repetition, authentication, authorization and client side validation. Client side validation means that things are not sent from the client which could hamper the operation of the main server. So that is the client side validation. Then is the server side validation that for say for example before something is submitted to the server it is checked at the server end assuming that it has passed from the client end. That can happen also. So that validation should be take place over there also and then encryption. As I said in the last module that TCP and IP were not built for e-commerce, were not built for having database applications running on the web with important data about the banks financial institutions. So that was not built into TCP and IP. So encryption is an important aspect. Then finally are the deployment considerations, non-distributed deployment. So the application is residing at a single place at the main server and it gives a good performance. Why? Because the processing is not distributed. The results don't have to go through the internet where the bottlenecks can be present. And then is the distributed deployment. Distributed deployment has scalability. So if I have more load then I can distribute my processing at different aspects. So over here I am over here. I can send it over there, send it over there, send it over there. So this means that the distribution of the processing reduces the load and I can increase scalability. Load balancing when I have distributed the application then I should ensure that there are no hotspots meaning that the processing is not overwhelmed at a certain node so that the overall impact is degradation in performance. And then the web farm considerations. Web farm considerations take into account the load balancing, the load distribution and performance scalability. And finally the technology considerations. So there is an ecosystem of different organizations of different products, say Microsoft products. So when we develop an application we take into account all the aspects, all the technologies and all the services and all the programs and all the applications which are there which are provided by certain companies so that they talk together collectively. There are no issues, there are no hiccups and things are working smoothly. So this is what I will have to cover in this module.


Excellencies, distinguished guests, distinguished panelists, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Vincent Bernat, I'm the editor-in-chief of the International Review of the Red Cross. And I'm excited and very honored to welcome you tonight to the inauguration of our first research and debate cycle, which focuses on new technologies and modern battle space. It is a pleasure to see so many of you here in this room to launch this new initiative. And before telling you more about the cycle, allow me to thank our partners and those who made this inaugural event possible. First of all, I would like to thank the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Permanent Mission to the United Nations for co-sponsoring this event and for their support towards the World Conference cycle. I would like also to thank our partner delegations in the field and our external academic partners who will relay globally this event and the next ones. Finally, I would like to say a special thank you to our distinguished panelists. We have kindly accepted to spend the evening with us. Considering their extensive expertise and knowledge on the topic, I really look forward to this discussion. Thank you. So let me now say a few words about the cycle itself. I won't go into the many reasons why we chose this topic. I think your presence tonight already shows that there is a big interest on this subject. Let me just say that this discussion continues the one we have started in the International Review of the Red Cross. We published recently this issue, and you will find more copies available outside. This issue focusing on new technologies and warfare. As many of you know already, we are celebrating this year the 150th anniversary of the first Geneva Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded in armies in the field. And a clear parallel can be drawn between the time of Henri Dunant and the present days. Because at the time already, they realized that new technologies were about to change warfare. And this period of change is still continues today with the emergence of new technologies, new means, and methods of warfare. At the time like today, there was already a recognition that such progress was creating new dangers, and that it was necessary to anticipate and manage new risks. So the answers provided by the founders of the movement and international law was to create a body of rules. And today, IHL faces new challenges. International United Law faces new challenges in its capacity to provide a relevant legal and operational solutions to the problems posed by the new technologies. So this is precisely why the first research and debate cycle will explore this topic. The conference tonight is only the beginning of a four-month cycle, which will unfold in several events around the globe. So it is not limited to a one-off event. It aims at connecting all stakeholders on the topic, from academics and researchers on international maintenance law to scientists and from military representatives to human rights lawyers and humanitarian practitioners. So we hope that the various stages of this conference cycle will facilitate discussion and exchanges of knowledge between these stakeholders. And not only through conferences, but also through interviews, academic articles, blog posts, and more. And you will be able to follow that on our web page. You can connect it through this QR code on the leaflet on your seats. So at the end of this cycle, we hope to come with a beginning of solutions, answers to the problems that we'll start discussing this evening. It is now my pleasure to give the floor to Dr. Nils Melser from the Geneva Center for Security Policy. We'll moderate tonight's discussion. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here, for showing your interest in this panel. It is a pleasure to be here, to be able to moderate this discussion, especially in view of the fact that we have a great panel. Let me briefly introduce to you our panelists today. All of them are highly valued colleagues, good friends. I have had the privilege to work with them several occasions. I'll take an old technology to make sure, because they have been changing functions many times since I know them, just to be sure that I'm not giving you anything wrong here. So just to my left is Dr. Roberta Arnold. She is an attorney and researcher at the Military Academy of the ETH in Zurich at the Chair of Strategic Studies. Just to her left is Professor Marco Sassoli, Professor of International Law, and also the Director of the Department of International Law and International Organizations at the University of Geneva. And to my far left, Dr. Bill Boothby, who is an associate fellow at the Geneva Center of Security Policy. But he is also a retired Air Commodore and former Deputy Director of the Legal Service of the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom. Then just to my left, Professor Noel Sharkey, who is Emeritus Professor for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. So he's really the one that knows how these things work. And also a Professor for Public Engagement at the University of Sheffield and the Chairman of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. And then to my far right, Mr. Laurent Giselle, who is a thematic legal advisor at the Legal Division of the ICRC. I would like to recall that this is an inaugural panel, an opening panel, introductory panel to a whole cycle of events that will focus on individual technologies such as autonomous systems but also on cyber warfare and other more focused events. So the purpose of this introductory panel really is to have a more generic view on new technologies and their likely impact on warfare. The rapid development of new technology often raises the question as to how its military use will influence warfare in the future. And consequently also how international humanitarian law, the law of our comfort, is it designed to govern these kinds of situations, how it will apply, and how it should be interpreted in relation to the use of this new technologies in warfare. Propose that we will structure this discussion around two broad areas. First, an introductory part that we'll kind of try to clarify what are we really talking about when we're talking about new technologies. And one of this is science fiction. And one of this is really happening or likely to really happen in the foreseeable future. That's kind of the first part. So we have all this background. We're all up to speed to that. And the second part then is also, well, what are the legal issues related to that? Can the existing law actually keep up with this rapid development? And is it an appropriate answer to this technological development? And also, once we have identified the problem areas, what are possible ways forward from here? The outlook, generally, what could be possible additional responses to this type of situation? In terms of format, I wouldn't like to have a presentation, a collection of individual presentations that last for 20 minutes each. And then in the end, you get to ask three questions. I'd like to structure this more as a discussion. I would like to prioritize the discussion between the panelists around these four questions in the beginning, maybe the first hour or so, depending on how it goes. And then open up to not just question and answers, but discussion also with you. Because many of you bring important experience and expertise also here to this event. And we would certainly like to benefit from that.


Demosthenes a Greek orator was quoted saying quote What a man wishes that also he believes end quote now this can apply to gambling and other things that are nature you see if you would compute the probability of you successfully winning a lottery or successfully winning a lot of these gambling games you will see that your chances are rather slim and Yet the gambler keeps on gambling He believes that he's gonna win and his belief is as good as reality Because he believes it or wishes for it in his mind. It's going to happen. This is the over optimistic tendency when we start becoming over optimistic in terms of the situations That going to happen in our life When we start thinking that good things should happen to us we're naturally That's not the way it is good things don't happen to you from the virtue of you wanting them Good things happen to you from the virtue of you applying the necessary work for them to be completed Now Seneca a Greek philosopher was quoted saying quote you will hear many men saying After my 50th year I shall retire into leisure My 60th year shall retire shall release me from public duties and What guarantee have you that your life will last longer and quote Now that line was from the shortness of life and If you think about a lot of people always talking about their plans for when they're 30 40 50 How they're gonna retire to you know the Greek Islands or whatnot have million-dollar business It's generally a lot over optimism We have no guarantee that we're gonna live up to 60 70 but people tend to forget it But the morality due to this tendency They see themselves being 80 with the grandkids and you know a nice house and a good career finish But this is pure over optimism. You don't get to that position Just from virtue of you want to be in that position Sometimes you won't even make it that far and there's nothing you can do about it Sometimes your work ethic won't be good enough for you to be in the position that you once thought that you would hold So you need to be very careful about this over optimism and the best way to guard yourself against it is understanding probability and also having an objective view on the Amount of work it takes to accomplish certain things because people tend to Underestimate the degree of work that's necessary to accomplish certain things So having the real expectations for that would definitely help Another thing I can help is also escaping the view of the universe as being self-orientated Thinking that the world revolves around you a lot of people walk around The world thinking that they are the main character of some movie They have a disregard of other people's lives or other people's wishes of how Dynamic the world is how many different things are going on and this disregard for how vast our universe is and how You know dynamic of this leads them to stop being over optimistic because they think that everything centers around them Once you get rid of this self-orientated view of the universe it is a lot easier to be objective and To see things as they are


I'm in the very happy position to have with me Dr. Elisa Granato, molecular microbiologist and the first ever FEMS early career microbiologist awardee. I have so many things that I want to ask you today, but I think let's start simple a few questions to get to know you perhaps. Where are you currently based and what is it like being a scientist there? Yeah, so I'm currently based at the University of Oxford and I'm a joint member of two different departments at Oxford. So one is the Department of Zoology and one is the Department of Biochemistry. And yeah, being a scientist at Oxford is really it's quite amazing. It's a very beautiful city. It's a very old city. There's a lot of really old colleges and many different departments. Also, they're very like physically close to each other, which is great because you can pretty much walk or cycle everywhere, which is always a lot of fun because it's not unusual to like see students or scientists walking around town or cycling around town with their samples. So it feels like a place that's very infused with science and with students. And I really enjoy that. And yeah, I'm also very lucky to be surrounded by very supportive people, both in and outside of my group. So it feels like a very kind of warm working environment overall. So, yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about the stage of Korea? And so our listeners know what you're doing. Sure. Yeah. So I guess you could call me a senior postdoc at this point, which always makes me feel very old when I say that, but I guess it's true. So I did my PhD. I finished my PhD in 2017, which was almost four years ago. And so I did my PhD in Switzerland, and that took like four and a half years or so. And then after that, I moved to the UK to do my first postdoc. And that took roughly three years. During the time I worked with a group here at Oxford with Professor Kevin Foster. And then now I recently got a fellowship to kind of develop my own more independent research, and I just started that. So that's kind of where I'm at at that transition point between kind of the first postdoc where you gain more independence, but you're still kind of working really closely with API. And now I'm transitioning into that phase where I'm kind of doing my own thing. And yeah, that's where I'm at. Yeah, I mean, I would like to wish you good luck in that. I know it's a very important stage of your career. So it's also very scary, but that's normal. I mean, that's what I keep hearing from other people. It's like, yeah, you can rely kind of less on the guidance of other people. You have to do you have to take more responsibility about, you know, with respect to your own project and this kind of stuff. So yeah, yeah. Do you think this is kind of the hardest challenge so far that you had in your career, I don't know. It's like every stage of your career has its own set of challenges. So I don't know if that's necessarily the hardest. Like doing your PhD can be a huge challenge during your first postdoc can be a huge challenge. Like being an undergrad has its own huge challenges. So it's just that the nature of these challenges change over time. Right.  You know, making mistakes all the time, failing pretty much at everything beginning. And that's totally normal, but that can be like mentally a huge challenge. And it is for a lot of people and it certainly was for me. So you have to like usually what happens during your PhDs that you kind of over time get used to this, you know, process of just repeatedly failing at things and realizing, hey, this is normal. And then as a postdoc, the biggest challenge is usually like, OK, now I have more independence, right, which is great. You usually have more freedom to pursue your own things, maybe. But that can also be kind of scary. Usually people tend to have more guidance in your PhD. So maybe the idea came from your PI and then you're in quotes, kind of only executing it. And that can be great in terms of structure, you know, you know what you're going to do. And then as a postdoc, you usually have more freedom. So it's kind of like gaining a set of skills that allows you to come up with your own ideas and come up with your own experiments and this kind of stuff. So it's always a great learning experience. But that can also be a challenge, of course. Every learning experience starts as a scary challenge. And so where I'm at now is basically the next level of independence, right? Like, now it's OK.    And then if you're lucky, you get money to pursue that project and or to pursue those questions. And then it's all on you, right? So now everyone's looking at you like, OK, so this was your own idea. You're going to do it on your own. How is that going? So that's kind of the challenge right now to deal with that kind of pressure and to yeah, kind of find my own niche, I guess, now that I'm getting more independence. I mean, going a bit lighter mood now because I think I gave you kind of a hard question to start. So what is your daily routine? How do you start your day? How do I start my day? I mean, usually. Usually I oversleep. I try to get up early, but I tend to like sleep in a little bit. Then I actually I try to be pretty organized with my day. So usually I have an idea of what I'm going to do. Let's say I go to the lab in the morning so I know when I need to show up, I do maybe start an experiment. Then I usually have lunch at the lab, not in the lab, but like in the building. And then, yeah, it kind of depends. Like some days I'm in the lab pretty much all day. Some days I'm just doing home office and analyzing things. Some days it's a mixture of that. Some days I maybe give a talk in the morning, then I go to the lab in the afternoon. That's also a degree of freedom that I really enjoy. So actually, there's I guess the answer should have been there's no such thing as an average daily routine because every day is different. And yeah, so sometimes it's also like, OK, I'm just not feeling well.  So I really, really enjoy just kind of going with the flow, seeing what I feel like, you know, doing tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. And then, yeah, then kind of structuring my day around that. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. And I think you are active on Twitter mostly, right? I guess I am. So Elisa has a Twitter account. If anyone of you wants to follow her and her journey, your account is at Prokaryota, right? Correct. Yes. Nice. So, yeah, if you want to follow her journey at Prokaryota on Twitter, if you do that, Elisa is a cat lover. So often the spotlight goes to her adorable cats in Oxford. I have two cats. I adopted them when I lived in Switzerland. So this was a while ago, like five or six years ago. I have a female and a male. Their mother and son, actually, which is a funny story, because when I adopted them, there was a bit of a mix up because it was a mom, dad, and then three kittens situation. And I was actually interested in getting the mom and the dad. So a male and a female, but they all look completely the same. They're all completely gray. And then they ended up giving me a mother and one of her sons.  Anyway, now it's too late, I guess. OK, it's fine.  So it worked out well. Anyway, yes. So the female is, how old is she now? Eleven and her son is a year younger. So he's 10. So they're getting kind of old right now, actually. Almost officially classified as senior cats, but I'm hoping they'll stick around for a while longer. I mean, the breed can can get up to 18 years old, I think, on average. So hoping, hoping that can get many more, many more wonderful years with them. Yeah. And having having those cats has been great, honestly. I was like, I live alone and it's really nice to have, you know, just someone to kind of interact with, you know, at the end of the day, even if it's just an animal, if they don't talk back. But it's really nice to just have company, you know, and yeah, they've also been really great for my mental health because being a scientist can be very stressful at times. And it's really nice to have that, you know, kind of support from a companion animal. And yeah. And of course, they're also just funny, silly.  And that's where it all started.  And yeah, that's when it kind of kind of took off. And it's always, it always brings me a lot of joy when people say that they enjoy my cat pictures because I'm like, yeah. They, yeah, they bring me so much happiness that it's always great to like be able to share that a little bit. And I, yeah. And I've seen you kind of moved to three or four different countries throughout your academic year, right? Yes, I've lived and worked in three countries. So I started in Germany. I was born in Munich. So I did my undergrad there. I did my bachelor's there in biology. And then I moved to Switzerland to do my master's in PhD. And that's where I adopted the cats. So they didn't have to do that first move at least. And then I moved from Switzerland to the UK after my PhD. And I was just kind of pointing that question to maybe talking about a little bit about research, the international nature of research. And, you know, as as you progress to different stages of career, you often need to switch institutions with countries. So if you have anything to share with us, it would be really nice to learn how how you experience that shift. Yeah, it's interesting because it's not only about shifting or switching countries, so to speak. And of course, that comes with a cultural shift, right? Like, I mean, language, you know, culture, social rules and this kind of stuff. But it also comes with a shift in departmental culture. So even when you move from department to department within a country, that can be a huge shift because different departments or different groups have different, you know, vibes, different levels of hierarchy or not different levels of cooperation or competition among their members. And it's really also about figuring out. I mean, first of all, making a choice of where to go, right? Figuring out what's a good vibe for you, what's a social environment that works for you in terms of how people interact with each other, how people treat with each other, what's the chemistry like, right? But after you made a choice and you decided where to go, it's all about kind of figuring out, yeah, like, what are the local rules? How do people interact with each other? How do I fit in? How can I bring my own voice to this? What can also be really useful is like, figure out what you liked at a place and then try to bring that to the next place. If they don't have that yet, you know, whatever that is, it can be like a way to do a group meeting or it can be a fun thing to do for socializing or whatever. Every place has something to offer in terms of, yeah, positive, I don't know, like strategies that work or positive interactions or something like that. And if you can remember that and then bring that to your next place, that can be a very, very positive thing. And that's also the opposite. If you were unhappy at a place, try to figure out why. And then if you move to a new place, try to maybe avoid that or learn from that or try to, you know, prevent people from making those same mistakes at your new place or like that. So it's all about learning and growing and figuring out what works and doesn't work. I mean, at this point, I've been to so many places that I have a mental list in my mind of like, things that work, things that don't work, you know, when it comes to, you know, research culture and group interactions and this kind of stuff. And that's really the upside of moving and living and a lot of places that you get a really good, comprehensive picture of what works and what doesn't work. So I'm hoping this will help me in the future when it comes to like building my own group that I've seen so many different versions of scientific departments of groups and social interactions and this kind of stuff that's probably, hopefully going to help me set up an environment that's inclusive and fun and productive, you know, and people are not too stressed, you know, people don't overwork and this kind of stuff. So yeah. Amazing. Thank you for sharing all of that. We have a lot of early career researchers who are listening. So I guess this this might be a bit comforting. Nice to hear tips from you, especially as you are you're going through that stage. So thank you for that. So, Eliza, Elisa, you're the FEMS early career microbiologist our day, the first one ever for this award, recognizing an excellent body of microbiology research, research potential and contribution to your society. First of all, I want to learn how did you feel when you first learned that you were selected for this award? Honestly, I was kind of like not in denial, but I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Like I saw the email and I thought like, oh, I don't know. Like I saw it and it didn't really register. So I kind of clicked on it, clicked away and like went on about my day for a few hours, which sounds weird, but then it kind of had to set in like, oh, wait, this actually happened. And then I went back to the email like, what? Wait, I actually got it. I don't know. Some of my brain wasn't processing it correctly the first time. But yeah, and then it was just elated. Honestly, I just kind of freaked out. I jumped up and down. I was like, unfortunately, no one was there in the lab with me at the time. So I wasn't able to like share with anyone, but I just like danced around like a maniac. And it just came as a huge surprise. Honestly, I was like, yeah, this thing happened. I mean, I know about the nominations and about the nomination and stuff, but I was 100% sure someone else was going to get it because I know so many people who are like, yeah, just so amazingly talented and brilliant. And I always feel like do way better and more impactful research. So I was honestly very surprised. But of course, it feels great to be recognized. It's a huge honor, also the fact that it's the first time this award was even given. So it feels very special. And yeah, I'm just so grateful that someone thought that my work deserves it. And of course, I'm very proud of what I'm doing and what I've achieved. But I just feel like I'm just surrounded by so many amazing and brilliant people that to be recognized in that way feels very, yeah, just feels very special. And yeah, very grateful. Again, huge congratulations from me. Thank you. From the middle of FEMS. Can you tell me a little bit about the research that helped you reach this award? Yeah, so basically the main thread, I guess, of my research interests over the last few years was bacterial interactions. So historically, I think people have sometimes assumed that bacteria are kind of these isolated cells that just kind of do their thing. Little machines, not very social, like maybe animals are. But we now know that that's very much untrue. Bacteria interact a lot. Bacteria can be super social. And basically, I was lucky to be able to work on different aspects of these bacterial interactions during my PhD and my postdoctoral work. In my PhD, I focused on cooperation. So basically how bacteria help each other, how they can play nice and achieve great things by working together. And I looked at how these things evolve over time during my PhD and also how cooperation affects virulence. So how much damage a pathogen is going to cause in the host basically by cooperating or not. So that was basically my PhD work. And then when I moved to the UK to do my postdoc, I wanted to see kind of the flip side of bacterial interactions. So I got really interested in bacteria, how bacteria compete with each other, how they kill each other. And so I worked on a project over the last few years where we looked at a very extreme competition strategy in E. coli, which is essentially cell suicidal toxin release. So some bacteria lies en masse to release anti-competitor toxins. And we were able to show that that mostly happens when bacteria experience a lethal attack by a competitor. So it's a super extreme response to an extremely lethal attack. So that was what I was working on over the last few years. And that's the project I just finished. And yeah, that's essentially the quick summary of what I did over the last few years. And this is something that you are going to continue or are you looking to kind of go into different avenues? A little bit of both. So I want to keep working on bacterial killing mechanisms because I just think it's a super exciting field. There's also a lot of new signs coming out kind of every day. It's very active, very dynamic field with a lot of young PIs too, which I think is great. So I'm hoping we can kind of push this field forward a little bit. And I want to bring in a new spin. So I've been recently really obsessed with horizontal gene transfer, which is basically bacteria kind of exchanging genes laterally with each other. So genes moving through populations. And I think that's super exciting because it also brings in this concept of kind of multi-level selection. So selection on the gene level versus selection on the bacterial level. So lots of cool evolutionary questions that can be answered by looking at this mechanism. So I want to bring together bacteria killing each other and bacteria exchanging genes horizontally. And that's actually what my fellowship is all about. So when I kind of merge these two fields, merge these two disciplines and then do cool science hopefully at the intersection between these two topics. So I want to bring killing mechanisms together with horizontal gene transfer. Let's see where that leads me. Yeah. I mean, good luck with that. I know. Thank you. And it's a bit difficult now that you say you are a bit more independent, perhaps figuring out what you really want to focus on and stuff like that. Yeah. And these things can still change too. Like there's a bunch of examples in the field where people thought they were going to do this, but then something really cool happened a year into the project and then they go into completely different directions. So it's also very important in science to always be open to the next cool thing. Because sometimes your original plan just didn't work out and that's totally fine at science. And then as long as your mind is open to like cool discoveries on the way, you can also switch directions. So who knows what I'm going to do in five years, but that's my plan for now. Yeah. I mean, you just started being at the stage. So you said senior postdoc fellow, right? Yes. This might sound a bit of a weird question, but what are the next steps that you're looking to do in your career? You mentioned having your own lab. Is that still? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely the vision. So I'm hoping that I can use those next few years where I'm still on my fellowship to kind of, yeah, carve out my own niche, get really cool results in this kind of new fields that I'm, yeah, hoping, not new field, but like a new direction that I'm hoping to get started in this fellowship. And then either apply for more permanent or assistant professor type jobs, maybe in the UK or in other countries, I'm actually open to moving to a different place in Europe. Of course, my home country is Germany and I also spend a lot of time in Switzerland. So going back to either Germany or Switzerland would be, I think, a really obvious next move to me and that'd be great if that works out, but if that doesn't work out, I'm also open to like other countries. So, and yeah, and then hopefully start my group. So that's going to be very exciting and also very terrifying. Again, like I said earlier, every step has its own challenges and things to be afraid of. But that's also the beauty, like it never gets boring. You always, I think that's really one of the upsides of this kind of career path. If you wanna call it upside, there's a challenger on every corner. And if you find ways of like sustainably getting through those challenges, it's such an amazing growing experience like in terms of personal growth. So I'm really looking forward to the challenge of having my own set of students, working with young scientists, mentoring them, helping them develop their own ideas and hopefully turn them into amazing scientists one day. And yeah, so it's going to be a huge challenge the next few years, but I'm so looking forward and I can't wait to get started. Yeah, I can feel a lot of positivity in you, Elisa. So yeah, I just hope everything turns all right, you know, with being in the lab, experiment a lot of things might not work, but I'm sure, you know, if you've been persistent, then you'll reach to a very good result. Hopefully fingers crossed, yeah. Yeah, so I've reached to the last question that I have for you today, which is again, on a positive note, I'm going back a little bit as well. So what inspired you to get into microbiology in the first place? Yeah, it's funny, because I actually kind of got into microbiology by accident initially. And I think that's actually true for a lot of people. I think it's actually quite rare, I mean, just based on my conversations with other scientists that people knew from the beginning, this is what they're going to do and that's what happened. I mean, that can happen to some people, but it didn't happen. It was not the case at all for me. So when I started my bachelor's in biology, I wanted to become a behavioral scientist. At first I thought I was going to do animal behavior. I was really into, yeah, just large animals, mammals and this kind of stuff. So my vision back then was that I was going to be a behavioral scientist. I was going to study maybe like lions and the savannah or something. So this is where I started. But then I just ended up taking this really, really good introductory course in microbiology in my bachelor's. And that completely changed my mind about everything essentially. So I immediately just fell in love with microbes and all the amazing things they can do. And then I basically said like, hey, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life period. I got so excited about microbes. And I also immediately then decided to specialize further in microbiology. So I ended up moving countries just because they had a really good master's in microbiology in Switzerland. And they didn't at the time in Germany really. So, because I was so motivated to like really get into microbiology as fast as I could. And then I also ended up doing my PhD there in Switzerland, also in microbiology. And then, yeah, I haven't looked back since. So I'm hoping I still get to work with microbes for a few more years or decades, hopefully. I mean, thank you so much for your time today, sharing all these amazing stories, tips of your feelings really with us today. It's been such an interesting discussion. Thanks for having me. This was a blast.


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It has not been given enough attention and it is sad because that's the only way whether you can gauge if your restoration activity is achieving its original objectives or not and if not why. So the activities of monitoring are and need to be an integral part of any national or global restoration plan. So far there have been conversations on how we could measure whether these global commitments will be achieved but it stays there pretty much and that's a very top-down approach which has its values. In other words you can quantify forest cover gains from space but you also need to quantify and gauge whether the restoration activity is succeeding at the ground level because restoration starts on the ground. So we need both a bottom up and a top-down approach to really satisfy if you will both the dimensions and generate reliable data that tells at the end by 2020 or 2045 whether these ambitious commitments were achieved or not. To meet its targets you need to consider a lot of different variables not only state of degradation and not only whether a given vegetation type of ecosystem type is more threatened than others. You need to consider also tenure rights, socioeconomic data and above all you really need to have clarity on what your restoration objectives are not necessarily meaning increasing forest cover but probably enhancing the supply of a given ecosystem service like watershed protection for example or carbon fixation or biodiversity objectives and when you don't have that clarity in these so-called national restoration plans or restoration maps you tend to focus only on the you know vegetation part. We think that not enough attention is being given in national restoration plans in the context of how to allow nature takes its course. Most of the discourse is based on tree planting which of course has you know a very valid reason it has a productive objective as well as protective but there are many other cost-effective approaches and one of them is allowing forest succession to proceed in areas where the substrate and other ecological conditions are good enough that the process can really evolve towards a mature ecosystem in 20, 30, 40 years. So on the one hand it can be very cost-effective because you don't need to invest in tree planting or nurseries but on the other hand you need to be really careful and decide you know how exactly and where the chances of success are the best. So to me the best strategy is to combine both so-called active approaches to restoration and passive approaches to restoration which is in essence allowing forest succession to proceed without any human intervention or else with very little human intervention.


So surprisingly the title of this video is not clickbait. I'm actually really excited to inform you all about why I'm choosing to go back to college But first I need to run a couple of errands, and I thought I'd take you all along with me It is a beautiful Friday evening in Los Angeles, California But I've been hiding in my room like a hermit all day teleworking telework on Fridays but the day is finally done and I finally have time to take care of all of the Seemingly endless list of adult things that bogged me down, but I don't have time for during the regular week Also, this is a complete and utter side note, but I want to go see the new spider-man movie last night like opening a night pack theater Craziest theater experience that I've literally ever had I'd recommend like I Don't know. I grew up with a lot of those old Villains and no spoilers or anything obviously, but it was a crazy time to say the least highly recommend Five out of five. I guess that's a first edition of Josh's quick movie reviews So I'm actually just walking down on the beach because I need to find some store that has wrapping paper because I have to wrap a bunch of Christmas presents this weekend because it's coming up. I'm going home soon But I was thinking I should probably put the drone up for sunset as well because the water is only Right down there Yeah, that's one thing. I've been telling myself is trying to make it down to the beach for as many sunsets as possible So getting to the whole reason I actually wanted to make this video in the first place I am currently attending grad school So I know I barely mentioned this at all other than in the last video that I filmed But it has been like a big decision and something that obviously, you know thinking about for a while Like I had to start, you know thinking about the application all the way back During junior year of college during my undergraduate degree. Obviously, I loved Yale And would have loved to go there for grad school and you know still can and still might have that opportunity to do That in the future But when it came to the degree program that I was looking at I wanted to continue My studies and not lose my CS skills, but I you know, I'm in the military. I'm working a full-time job I needed something that I could do part-time and work on it's kind of like a side project It actually kind of ended up working out perfectly because the job that I'm actually doing in the Space Force is not It's a technical position, but I'm not actually doing any coding. I'm a program manager So I was really worried when I found out what job I was actually going to be doing that I would lose a lot of my programming skills So doing a master's in CS is gonna be a great thing because it's gonna allow me to you know work and continue to keep up My programming skills while I'm still working a job where I'm not doing as much programming Ideally, I'd like to continue to maintain my programming skills throughout the rest of my military career So now what degree program I'm actually doing well I am currently a student as in finishing up my first semester at Georgia Tech through their online master's in computer science program It is a pretty popular program I'm sure if you've looked at CS master's at all you probably heard of it, but it's not the only online CS master's program, but it is one of the most prestigious because it doesn't it's one of the reasons that I was considering it is I Was this close to going to Georgia Tech for undergrad the fact that I can get a Georgia Tech degree a Georgia Tech Master's degree in computer science won a top 10 Computer science school and do it part-time while I'm still able to do my military job was such an appealing Thing to me. So it's almost like automatic at that point, especially when I knew I wouldn't be coding in the military So yeah, that was the main thing I wanted to bring up and talk a little bit about in this video If you have any questions or anything put them in the comments below But yeah, I'm currently finishing on my first semester. I have a final exam and a little bit I'm only taking one class and I'd love to do kind of like a semester recap of the class that I was taking And kind of my initial thoughts on the program or something similar to that If you're interested because I know there's a lot of there's some other youtubers that are making some Content about you know this Georgia Tech program and I'd love to kind of add my own thoughts and opinions to that cool cool lot I was able to take you guys along with me for you know A little chunk of my day and talk about it kind of what I'm up to these days Obviously planning to continue sharing aspects of everything. So let me know what you're curious


Thanks everyone for coming. So today I'm gonna talk about, so this talk is gonna be about crypto analysis of candidate branching program of skations And this is a joint work with crack gentry and the shy. Hello V 40 years ago If we have a maker announcement that we sent we stand today on the brick of a revolution in cryptography and And four years ago in the IO paper, they also still didn't say that we stand today on another break of Stained the on the break of another revolution in cryptography, but we feel like this is happening So with the power of IO as you can see from the several of the talks Industry or crypto and in the previous years you can build Fancy applications and I think more importantly it starts It gives us a new way of thinking in cryptography But as the people who maybe only have the elliptic curve on your hand or like the other tools and on your hand you can still think so what can IO candidates be built up from and Currently we kind of only know how to build IO candidates from candidate multi-linear maps and the question is going to be recursively come back say How much do we know about the candidate multi-linear maps and the IO candidates based on them? so a brief history about the multi-linear map and their relevance in cryptography so in 2003 Bonnet and Silverberg gives us the motive of thinking about multi-linear forms in cryptography and also they kind of envision Kind of there is maybe there are some possibilities to extend the very patterns elliptic curve to make it to multi-linear or higher degrees and 10 years later the candidates we have actually coming from a slightly different field which is really There are three proposals were from I will just abbreviate in this talk as GDG 13 CLT 13 and GDG 15 so they are all based on kind of the noisy based the lattices based For the homomorphic encryption idea and they tailor the decryption method to support some Equality test in the highest level So with these candidates so four years later how much do we know about these candidates? So kind of that's the status of the candidate multi-linear map if I summarize now There's something in the bottom that we still don't We are understood which is even the one wayness of the secrets in the encodings So they might be secure. They may be hidden in some situations They may not be hidden in some other situations So we still don't have a general kind of methodology to understood how much they're hidden and So we don't have really good examples, but we usually take two benchmarks of the Applications that are built from multi-linear maps So one application will be the multi-party non-interactive key exchange Which sort of needs to use the public sampling mode of multi-linear maps and the other branch mark is the Indistinguishability of skation which do not need the public sample motor Public sample of both feature and usually we try to analyze these two benchmarks to understand How much do we understand about the underlying multi-linear maps? so This is kind of the status before this work. So we kind of like The power for zero nizing attack kind of breaking the public mode, which is the key exchange application for all the three candidates and for IO we actually We actually don't know how to break off them and we have some hope of security on Maybe some candidates. So for CLT 13 the original zero nizing attack and then you can Basically use that to break some branching program of skation based based on the GJSW for GJS13 the work of myos at all can be used to they use the They can break for some simpler variants of the of skation candidates that I will mention later And the for GJS15 based Indistinguishability of skation candidate. We didn't know any analysis result before this work So in this work we basically show New analysis results on the GJS13 based IO and the GJS15 based IO so in a very high level our new tech combines the zero nizing idea from kind of the Attack of John at all two years ago, and then we also We also need to explore it the weakness inside of skation. So that's kind of the To the core of our new attack. So I will mention it later All right. So the plane of the rest of the talk is I'm gonna I'm gonna review the GJSW of skation candidate and Actually, I'm gonna spend most of the time to review that candidate because kind of the course to Extract the The feature of that candidate and then kind of analyzing the candidates on GJS15 and 13 It's gonna be following my explanations on that candidate And I choose to kind of spend more time on GJS15 because that candidate seems to be less familiar with people And in the end I will briefly mention how it applies to GJS13 So let me Review the candidate IO from GJSW. So in my point of view I kind of Split the construction into a layer and the layer fashion. So let me explain what I mean So to off-skate a program. So any program is any of skation of a program It's just gonna be another representation of the problem. It's just depending on the representation So what do you do? So what what is done in the GJS13? It's actually I Think of that in kind of four layers So first a zero layer you think about you first to choose a representation of the Plantex expansion program Then they add three safeguards or the randomize is Randomizing kind of process on the plain Plantex programs and then in the end they wrap the randomized the Plantex program using the Multilinear max Multilinear maps mechanism. So in some sense the safeguards are the randomizing steps that they sort of Intuitively give more trouble and the preventing illegal operations that I will also explain and The final multi-linear map is sort of like we think about this is the source of computational harness So that's the big picture So the truth of the Plantex program chosen by GJSW is Oblivious branching program. So basically you can represent arbitrary circuits by the subset products of a lot of In a concrete term the permutation matrices. So in this picture, these are all permutation matrices So the for the practical purpose for obfuscation We think about we have a functional branch Where if you selected the input so the input was selected the steps The first for example that the first input was selected the first step and the third step Second input for these so for any inputs the pet will look like something like that and You do the product of the selected matrix. You get either identity or non identity cycle So that will tell you zero and one and actually you always compare with a zero dummy branch So in this picture the dummy branch are all identity. So whatever you evaluate you got identity So you compare with these two and then you tell whether you're encoding a zero or not in this branching program representation So let me describe the safeguards right now. So the first safeguards is called Killian randomization. So you basically pick random Random matrix and it's inverse and then multiply them in the middle of each pair So therefore it's kind of randomized each of them, but still we evaluate everything is going to be the same because the K and the K inverse cancel out and Then you do another kind of different pairs of K prime in the branch dummy branch again So the second the safeguard is called They called the bundling scalars to protect the mix input attack. So what is mixing put attack? So observed the oblivious branching program to represent a circuit So some input each input can actually manipulate multiple steps So in some sense if I choose the first block in the first step and the second block in the second step Then you can actually compute something which you are not allowed to compute to so the scalars that random scalars a and a prime they are chosen to trying to kind of Enforced the consistency so you must choose the right scalars And in the functional branch in a dummy branch and then you subtract them They can cancel out if we do it illegally they want to cancel out so you will get always something you cannot recognize with So I'm trying to I'm going to remind you that actually the scalars are going to be the weakness kind of exploit in this attack so this is the right time to wake up and Let me do that this slides again. So observe. What's the kind of the intuitive weakness of the scalars? So the scalars chosen by them are kind of need to have some limited the community a community Property so in some sense, whatever a community is better for cryptography crypt analysis. It's easier to Extract with so I will come to that point when we want to scrub the attack So the third safeguard is called diagonal randomizations And on the diagonal entries on the the random mentions on the Diagnose and the bookends they put the bookends in the on the on the two sides So in this picture, it doesn't show us anything just to change the B and to change the The color. So let me do a zoom in so in each block You don't represent the permutation branch of program itself Also, you pad you and the V on the diagonal These are random and when you multiply together these you and the V are going to be multiplied on the position of you and the V So to cancel them out in the end What you do is you put the left the bookend which is zero on the first block and The right bookend which is zero on the second block so that the functionality still work and it gives you more randomness So this part don't have an intuitive explanation of what what it really prevents But somehow in the previous attack by Miles et al for digital 13 kind of if your Obscasion candidate don't have the random diagonal entries They can actually attack but with the diagonal entries. They don't have the attack So kind of this intuitively creates more problem even in a very concrete sense So let's summarize all the safeguards and in the end you just to apply the multi-linear map on whatever you have Got to know like the randomized the branching programs So this summarized the GGH ISW candidate and in fact many of the branching program candidates You can take an alternative view of these things as Having these components maybe put them differently Maybe throw away some of them maybe add something more or maybe choose a different representations So and there are other candidates based on circuit the model or they are both dropping from Function encryption or put them together So these will not be covered by the talk today, but I believe you can use the similar techniques to analyze yourselves So, okay, so that summarized the description and if we take a more Can kind of more deep view on the difference of other candidates? So the GGH ISW the status is in the middle if you use the candidates without the Certificate guard, which is the diagonal entries. We know how to break them for to just 13 digits 15 We still don't know and if you do it Kind of like even you you enforce the representation of the branching program to use the door input branching program that fits into the right side and They even have a security analysis the security proof in the idealized the model for GGH 13 So this kind of gave you a more concrete view of comparison with simpler and the candidates and even harder candidates so our work Our work is still focus in the middle, but let me continue So now let me move on to the GGH ISW if you are wrapped a multi-linear map with digits 15 So let's see what happened. So still brief review of digit 15 So the digit 15 if I capture it concretely, it will still take another 25 minutes So just let me do a one-shutter review So remember we are trying to wrap each of these square matrices randomized in the way that you can still multiply them and Do the zero test in the end So what digit 15 do is you think about each slot of these square matrix You sample an LW encoding of that Then use the aim matrices, which these are the digits 15 parameters. You sample a small Small matrix encoding so a matrix which encodes as these matrices are with small norms, but these details are not a I think these details are two details for this talk. So these are what the encodings look like and The whole branching program of skated a branching program. Let me give you a big view So remember there's a functional branch and there's a dummy branch the encoded the program is going to be look like this So you will start with the functional branches above and each of them is encoding each of the s and To evaluate you just to compute a dddd according to the input you are choosing and as there is a dummy branch You also multiply accordingly in the end you subtract So, okay, so let me describe the setting for the crypt analysis to now So to attack digit 15 we actually take four steps, but before I tell you the four steps Let me tell you what kind of branching program we can break So we are thinking for concrete examples, so you can extend them later actually so we're trying to distinguish program where all the branches are an edited matrix and We are trying to this Distinguish this with some other branching program. Maybe the these two blocks of the branches are no entities So they computed the same functionality, which is all identity But they are visually different from this slide at least and we are trying to break them after they are wrapped with all the safeguards and Okay, so how would we do so step one so step one is kind of easy We first honestly evaluate on essentially all the inputs and we need to organize them kind of smartly So you think about we drop a line on the branching program so we iterate many inputs on the left and the iterator many inputs on the right and do the evaluation and The compute w equals to a dddd on the functional branch and the a dddd on the dummy branch and a subtract them as the honest evaluation And we need to organize these matrices in a bigger square matrix, which I will call it w So why is that useful? We will explain later So you do a bunch of honest evaluations and then we are going to play with these evaluations So the second step is we're going to compute the left the kernel of that organized w So after you have this w matrix is you can rewrite it the expression into kind of the Product of two sub matrices. So the first one will be having These s as a secret concatenate with all the error matrices and the the Z branch will be Also, what you can see from the Z branch So the important observation now is Let's just take a kind of a general view of both of them So the Z branch is very likely the Z box you take it as a square matrix It's very likely to be for rank in the basis in the basering So it's not any multi queue anywhere. It's in the basering So therefore if you computed the left the kernel of w it will be the left the kernel of x actually So these two steps are kind of the standard zero-nising attack by the previous work of corn at all and then the next few steps is going to be involving the obfuscation features So step three and the step four are gonna be Extracting the information about the scalars from the left the kernel So this is actually a very complicated steps but I kind of summarized the result of analyzing this step by the Communitivity of the scalars you can rewrite each Subset product of s in that way. So therefore a can be pop out in the beginning and You just a cut off all the randomized Things you can organize the equations about ace In this way so that if it's the left the kernel computed in the previous step and a the product of a in many kind of these samples are gonna be the Unknown variables that you're trying to solve. So this is what we have and this is what we want so the problem is this is kind of a bunch of nonlinear equations and you need to find a way to solve them and And so it's actually like we are using the homogeneous feature of these equations So it's a tricky step that but we guarantee after certain parameters You can still kind of solve these equations and to get to the relations of these scalars so Okay, so see in some sense if we get the relations of the scalar We should already do the kind of the mix input attack because we kind of already take out one of the safeguards and But it turns out to there's still more stuff we need to do Which in this case because we only get the ratios of the scalars and the these things are actually included in the ring of Cyclotomic integers. They are not in the ring of It's not it's it's in the fraction field of Cyclotomic integers. So what we have is the ratios and we want is each of them so in some sense In the last step we use a huge hammer that if you have the Principle idea of program principle principle idea of problem solver and the fractional oracles Then we can actually get some of these scalars So if you want to build a quantum computer or willing to spend some exponential time on your own Please try to build a principle idea so in the fractional oracles So to summarize after these four steps and in the in the last step using some Superior power you can extract the scalars and the conduct the mix input attack so Gigi 13 is very simple What you do is actually So I will skip the Gigi 13 recap the feature is also the similar since you get the ratio of the scalars And then try to do the kind of their use the simplified another Annihilation attack to extract to do the mixing put attack in the middle zone. So I will skip the details so to summarize this is the status and Kind of like I put something in the middle now. So this is the Gigi 13 Sorry, this is the Gigi s I SW status and this is the concurrent to work which there's Online concurrent with our proposal and I think still using all of these techniques breaking branching program candidates with dual input Protection and with all the safeguards is still difficult so These are the summarizing of the status and These are the direction for the new crypto analysis if you want to try and also we have some positive So for counter crypto analysis, you can also For limited use of Gigi 15. We already know something can be proved based on LWE so all of these stories are kind of the ongoing story of pursuing the truth and happiness in the crusade of post-modern Cryptography and I hope you enjoy the talk and the thanks for your time


Hi, my name is Danny, and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today I have another book review for you, and this week's book is called Pagan Portals, Sacred Sex and Magic by Web Pathcenter. This book was a fabulous read, and I think it's probably one of my favorite from this series of short Pagan books called Pagan Portals. I got an early review copy on PDF, so I can't speak really to what the book physically will look like or be like, but the content is well worth the purchase, especially if you're interested in using magic and energy work in your sexual life. The book is written by a series of different authors, and the beginning part of the book has a short little bio of all of the different perspectives that are used in the book. Even though it's written by a fairly large group of authors, it has a very consistent and approachable voice throughout the entire book, so it's easy to read and you don't feel like you're listening to a million different voices. The book starts with a kind of beginner's what is magic and how people might use it in sex, and kind of just the fundamentals of what that might mean. So if you're new to sex magic, it won't be completely out of the blue or impossible for you to understand. However, it does quickly get into some really detailed and comprehensive information about how you might use sex magic in healing, in ritual, in group settings, in individual settings. It really packs a huge amount of information into a small amount of space. I also really appreciated how this book did a pretty good job about being respectful to gender identity and sexual orientation. It never feels like it's coming from a specific heteronormative viewpoint. However, I am a cis-female heterosexual, so I am less inclined to maybe see some of those issues when it comes to gender and sexual orientation than someone who comes from a minority viewpoint. But it seemed like a really great effort was made in that regard, and I think it serves the book really well. It makes it seem as it should be that this magic is for everyone regardless of what your relationship is, who you are, and what you're doing. Finally, the book ends with a pretty simple but very direct talk about ethics and sex magic. Sex is obviously a taboo subject in many communities and areas. Pagan's probably a little less so, but there are still some uncomfortable issues there to talk about. So rather than just leaving the ethics part down to harm none or, you know, consent, it really goes into detail about what consent should mean and look like in an ethical manner, what harming none can be in a pagan viewpoint, and some other tidbits about protecting yourself health-wise, protecting you and your partner emotionally. The ethical conversation was needed and done in an extremely respectful but firm way, which I think is crucial when discussing something like this. So now, was the book really useful? Did the magic work? Which is I think what a lot of people want to know when they're picking up a more how-to book. So I can't speak to everything in the book, but there were a few things that worked really well for me and I think it is a valuable resource that if you're interested in sex magic, you will find to be viable and work well. This book comes out on June 26th, I believe, although Amazon looked like maybe some Kindle versions were coming out early. So definitely check the link in the description below and go get that book. The Kindle version is super affordable. It's like $3 or maybe $5. And I think this is going to be something that people will really, really love. Thanks for listening to another of my book reviews. I hope you have a fabulous week and I will talk to you later. As always, may you find peace in the sacred grove.