Yeah, I can see that perfectly. Take it away. Okay, great. Good morning, everybody. My name is Fran McKegney I'm head of digital learning at hi Bernie college and I'm joined by two of my colleagues here Lavro Bollyat who is the UX designer on this project and Justin Staunton who is our learning technologist and all-round Moodle wizard we're going to talk about the project that involves the redevelopment of a Moodle VLE putting design thinking and user-centered design at the heart of the at the heart of the process A quick bit about how Bernie college for those of you who don't know us. We're a Dublin based blended learning college. Our focus is teacher training. We have about two and a half thousand students. They are post graduate students taking their professional master's in education We're the biggest provider of teachers into the Irish education system and we're now starting to branch out into both undergraduate programs and beyond education About 18 months ago, we initiated a project which internally is known as the digital architecture project in which we started to look ahead and say what will teaching and learning look like in a Bernie college over the next five to 10 years and from our perspective the attendant question that went along with that was You know, and what digital architecture will we will be needed to support whatever vision emerges of teaching and learning over the next Over the next period of time So we spent some time talking to the various departments in the college from the academic teams to it to really support Executive management team and so on and came up with a structure of six workshops That would explore different teams and out of that we would issue a report and then take the take the The journey on from there. You can see the teams that we had, you know first one role of mobile technologies and a brand new college's future student identity and student journey Using digital technology to strengthen community and learning in the regional groups. Again, we're blended college Our traditional model is 50 percent online 50 percent classroom or face-to-face So we have students all over the country and we group them in different ways by regions by subjects And and so on but obviously building community and strengthening communities is a huge team for us Collaborative learning and research was workshop four And then obviously the future the VLE got its own dedicated got its own dedicated space So this project came out of that work We did the six workshops. We issued a report We then did a couple follow-on more detailed workshops and out of that really we got a mandate to build a new platform It's a rare privilege To have the opportunity to build something from scratch So, you know tremendous opportunity for us on the one hand It also comes with the daunting caveat, which is since we are a digital college. It can't fall over So it has to work or we're out or we're out of business So for the past 16 months or so, we've we've been working away on on this Now there are two other components to the overall architecture that we won't get into today We have a high Bernie college home and then we have we also launched a collaboration App for staff and students at the same time, but we'll obviously focus here on the on the Moodle redevelopment As the person had the overall responsibility, I suppose my biggest worry was How would we not get lost as we went through the development process? As you know, um over the over a 16 month period you take hundreds of decisions at different levels everything from You know features to ui elements technical Decisions work about and so on and With the best intention of the world you can get driven off course over the course of over a course of a long project And two images came to my mind when I was thinking about this the first one was A an airline or an aircraft flying on a on a long distance flight say from san francisco to dublin How does it find its way in land in dublin rather than london or budapest or somewhere else? And so obviously this radio beacons flying beacon to beacon is is a key component of Of that journey and I was wondering what are our beacons? And how do we know we're on track at the various times and keep ourselves keep ourselves en route the second image Was howl's moving castle that came to mind now castle castle is one of my favorite movies The castle itself is an incredible invention for those who haven't seen the movie It has feet it can walk over mountains. It also can fly It has lots of capabilities inside amazing entrances and exits to it But you know if you were to look at it as a ui You would probably describe it as somewhat idiosyncratic a howl knows Where everything is but it's probably for an external user quite difficult to find out where everything goes and how You know how things work in there. So we know over the course of projects we get additional requests Can we have one of these can we have one of those how about this? What about that and you know, not just bolting them on but including them into the Into the overall flow of the of the project was was was key for us And my experience over 25 years is the safest Area focus is to just really focus in on the users who are the users On the system. What are they trying to do? What do we physically ask them to do to achieve? their goals and so on and at all times through the project to To have this relentless focus on the on the user experience And so We decided to sort of embed formally design thinking user design user centered design into the development process Which was not in the college's tradition up to that. So this is that was a new Step or a new part of the process So we went on the hunt found Lavro added him into the team and formalized The process now i'm not going to say much about the process itself. I'm going to leave that to Lavro When we get there, I do want to say two quick things before I hand over to Lavro one is Of course, you know, you all know there are many users on a system and it's really Particularly from a from a team lead perspective. It's really worthwhile spending time thinking about the users the relationships between the users and actually Clearly identifying a hierarchy of users in the project and there's two reasons to do this. I think one is It it really clarifies things for the team and helps, you know Define the lines of attack and how you're going to go after this The second thing is it does it provides protection to the team as well So I was fortunate enough to be on the executive management team in hibernia college So once we had decided on the approach, I could take it to the leadership group get there buy in At that level which would include the heads of the various departments and that gave space and coverage to the team to get on with the work in terms of the priorities that we had identified And the sequence in which we were going to we were going to go after it Obviously we put the students as the number one priority And everybody else was came after that, you know program and men's it and so on came came after that VLE support administrators came after that And lover is going to talk to the student journey and the student experience now in a moment Last thing before I hand over to lover. I just want to say that we're you know There were other prerequisites that you know had to be built into this project one of the things that we really wanted to do was to Spend time looking at the architecture of the platform itself in particular. We wanted to separate out the business rules the business behaviors The programmatic behaviors from the presentation layer at the top And we wanted to do this for a couple of reasons mostly to do with control so that we could continue to refine and iterate Being in full control of the of the of the presentation layer We something we didn't have with the previous version of our of our VLE And a shout out to our development partner innovation in relation to that we innovation who are one of the sponsors of this conference Worked with us on this and understood what we're trying to achieve and did a great job And so I want to give a public thanks to mark and his team for the support they gave us through through this Secondly mobile enablement as you can see this is part of a broader initiative in the college and the role of mobile technologies Has gone from being very little I would say in the past now being an integral part of how we think about everything moving forward So enablement may actually not be strong enough Mobile technologies are first among equals So you can't design for a laptop and then as an afterthought Include mobile There are capabilities mobile capabilities that That you know laptops and someone don't have that are very useful in an educational setting So to think of it as an equal client was really important was really important to us So having said that I'm going to pass over to Lavro to answer the question. What did we actually do? So Lavro, I'm going to stop sharing and let you take it up from here All right. Thanks Fran just Show me screen please I hope you can see this Yeah, we can a bit cool So yeah, as Fran mentioned I was brought in as a UX UI designer And so my job was kind of to evaluate the situation of the old my helm system and see what can be improved and Obviously made better and just to briefly touch upon this like We designers usually try to have some kind of a framework to work with So I use the usual design thinking and user set in design Which just briefly for people who might not be familiar with these frameworks Design thinking is a methodology framework which kind of sets you on a correct path Make sure that you you know Design correctly and for the actual problems It's usually represented with with a double diamond model Which actually you know has four distinct phases Which are research, analyze and then ideate and testing prototype So the kind of the idea is that you first, you know, you start with a problem And then you have to research you there's a phase of divergent thinking where you you know expand your ideas And then you analyze things you narrow them down and then you define the problem And then in the other diamond phase Your first idea to brainstorm, you know come up with a lot of solutions possible ideas Which is once again divergent thinking and then once again you converge things with testing and prototyping Well, until you get a final solution that works And now I kind of have my own variation where I have things in three phases It's this is not it's just once again, you know research and analyze because I have feelings that here you still have A bunch of my nine search questions Then you ideate this kind of is very chaotic and creative process And then once again, you ball things down to a single solution Now this is not so important for you, but My slides are gonna represent that here. So this is kind of the first phase research and analyze Okay, so one as always, you know, the first thing is One of the advantages for me as a UX designer is Whenever I come into an organization, I'm essentially a new user So I can explore the old system And so the first thing that I did was so-called heuristic analysis Which stands for like a discovery analysis where you just Or some people like to call it an expert analysis So my first task was to, you know Explore the old system all my homes and see what's wrong, you know, some intuition and experience that I have with other platforms And now I can briefly show you This is the old system. What did you look like? And I mean on the first In your first status, it's kind of clear that it's an outdated Design, uh, there's a lot of options. So things can get confusing and out of hand Now granted, this was built in Drupal But still, I mean for a new user a student who comes here, it can be very confusing And then you click on study now and this is where you actually enter a module And I mean so from the design user experience point of view, it's once again Kind of hard to find your way around. There are these courses here. You know what to do The menu is still the old menu. It's study tools a lot of options. So In the end, I kind of bought things. I think these are our main problems. So it's a complex system There's a lot of things you can do Like one of the major ones is no visibility of system status and no breadcrumbs or at least the breadcrumbs That work correctly. So if you're going through course, it's uh, this kind of changed You can't even click on this. Where am I? No visibility of the system status as I said, so you don't know where you are actually If you want to go back, you have to click home once again study now the whole journey begins again and That's kind of hard And so one final thing a big one was there's it's not there is not a match between the real world So the academic program that students are enrolled in and the design model of this system So what I mean by that is this is kind of a small graphic. I hope you can see it So this is this represent whoops, sorry represents the academic program so Here, you know when you enrolled in the college the program consists of a lot of modules So there is a bunch of them then modules contain courses courses contain sessions and sessions in young have activities Now that kind of exists in model, but it's not represented like that. I don't I don't know where my modules are You know, I can go try to find courses if you need to take an assessment something that's for a specific module I have to go to home assessments And then I have to find my modules. So these are the modules And take an assessment. So it's everything. It's mostly a problem of bad information architecture But you know to validate my findings I did a couple of other things. So one of the main main things is the user interviews or observations obviously when we talk about user standard design, this is the The main thing that we have to do so basically I talked to 10 of our students on zoom The pandemic already started. So that's kind of a must So I just you know, I gave them a series of tasks and asked them to perform them You know, it's just like, uh, it's a regular monday What's the first thing that you do when you log in to my helms? They shared their screens obviously and So I just analyzed, you know, I wanted to see What they do how they perform things and I also gave them some specific tasks Like go into a certain course activity try to do something then, you know, give them something Kind of difficult to find. How would you know, like, what's happening next to your program and things like that? So, you know, a lot of Going across the whole system just to see how they Can get around And the one other thing that was kind of useful Was using the matomo analytics, which is a system similar to google analytics Which we had in place for this platform Which actually just kind of just Validated things that I learned from users. So I found out about the most common places where users go to And where they spend the most time In the platform. So that's kind of cool. And then Just to have a shared understanding With my teammates and colleagues, I made this mental model, which is a common artifact in UX sign Where I just wanted to represent ha and my findings. So our user Usually spends most time In these three areas. So studying learning Calendar, obviously to see what's happening next and then assessments and grade book And some minor things were, you know, school placement, especially during that time here Library, especially when they were writing their research dissertation And programming for just to see what's happening in the timeline and things like that So, yeah, this was kind of a model for all of us to be on the same page. What's what's important for students and what they really need Okay, and then I also have this aspect called user journey flows, which represents Just how hard it is for users to get to A certain, you know, point in the system. So this is one of the screenshots. So the yellow of the The green line represents a correct path. So from the home page If they wanted to get to the activity So this is what they should have done But, you know, it's obviously this kind of represented. It's a long journey with a lot of steps to get there And another thing that it's kind of interesting is that not only it's a long journey There are a lot of confusing nodes where you can, you know, get off track. So if you're in the home, you can click on study now Then you don't know where to go. You can go to other pages. Then you have to go back And so in the end, this is what we have a long journey that it's both confusing and long for people So we just wanted to simplify things. That's kind of our most important, you know line here Simplifying short in the user flow with less room for mistakes So kind of this was the ideal thing that we wanted Users to be able to perform in just a few steps to get to the activity Okay, now we are kind of in the ideation phase a lot of brainstorming and thinking about things And here I came back to the information architecture Where one of the more important things was to build a match between the real world and our platform And this I refer back to the academic structure. So program has modules course Modules have courses and then you have sessions and each time back there it is So one of the artifacts was the site map here Which is not so important And here thankfully we have the Justin Stanton our Moodle expert Who stumbled upon the Moodle move theme and we kind of examined a lot of themes and things we could do And this theme perfectly fit our needs Because mostly because of the left-hand side menu, which as I'm going to show now We actually used it to map all of the most important things You know the students students need we mapped them to the menu. So, you know study learn Pat it's going to be here in the main thing calendar as well great book and so on So that was kind of neat and then we went on to Playing with wireframes testing things. So this just a small screenshot of a very chaotic Sigma file that I have Okay, so now just a couple of interesting things I can maybe show you the New platform that we have it looks like this. So this is new my house Yes, so the first thing that's interesting from a Moodle perspective is We added this study now or home page Which actually, you know, this is the first point that actually matches the real world and the platform model So we are now on this level. This is kind of your program So this contains the list list of all of your academic Modules so orientation for this education. So now it's kind of matches the Information architecture of the real world, which is cool and here on top you have recently access courses Which is a standard thing Which is obviously quite useful. So we we have three of those here So that's the first thing and then when you click on one of the modules you get into the so-called module hub So this is also kind of new in the Moodle world. So let's say, you know, I have to I got foundations of education So you have all your courses here, you know neatly in cards with pretty pictures And on top you have the core activities as we call them. Now, this is so we as I showed previously in the old system You know, everything that's concerning one single module was scattered across the whole system As I said assessments, you have to go here School placement hub and things like that. But now everything for the module foundations of education is inside here So you have module info But you know some information and breadcrumbs work so I can go back this way Live events assessments, you know, you can access everything here and it's nice and logical, which is cool All right, so this is a big one for us. We believe, you know, this simplifies things a lot and the next So we have a course and session pages an interesting thing that we did here We put sessions, you know, immediately visible And we aligned them, you know, made them here like in tabs, which kind of represents progress and the timeline So this is session one which one is which is usually, you know, visible whenever you come here session two sessions three so, you know, it kind of showcases the timeline Uh, okay, so another kind of interesting thing that we did, we obviously, you know, wanted to ask What do users really want or need? So in Moodle there were a lot of icons which represent different activities and You know, when you talk to students, they don't really care if something is a database, you know Is it a file or a book or a page? So we kind of wanted to narrow these down simplify things once again So we made as you can see, you know, some of these repeat themselves Uh, which is represented here better. So we kind of group them. So all of the interactive activities get a blue icon These are some kind of like retrieving information Supporting icons still, you know, color coded for easier You know, you can see things at a glance and it's represented here on this page or in the live system, you know Yeah, these are the activities Okay, and one other thing we designed a cleaner style for the calendar, which, you know, in the old system Sorry, it is kind of unnecessarily Full bright colors if I can show it to you, you know, like this I mean the calendar works great in Moodle, but yeah, we just want to make it nicer and cleaner And then obviously we this is just to show, you know, we played a lot of colors We wanted to stay on brand with, you know, the user interface This is just a showcase that we did a lot of research Then we obviously tested things with two prototypes in Figma, then with the skin mock-ups And then we tested the developed site for months So in the end, we have this, you know, we kind of hope we did talk to our users. They find a new thing much more usable And it's a new user experience, you know, it works and it's responsive, it works on a lot of devices So yeah, that's that's it for me. I hope Like this and thanks So for the Q&A, we have Justin Stanton, maybe he's the best person because he's a good little expert, as we said So maybe we can direct all the questions to Justin Thanks Thanks, Laura Thank you so much Thank you to your team for coming along and presenting today Sure Thank you There's one question here from Hugo He asks, how big is your team between instructional designers, developers, UX, etc? So the digital design team is 17 people But not all and not everybody was involved in this project because we do have a content development group that were not involved in that We also worked with innovation. We think we had Between this and the other aspects of the of the project that we did we probably had four Four people work with us in in innovation So and then we're obviously We have a dedicated IT team and we have a dedicated VLE support team So they also participated in the project. So it was a big group. Um, it was a big group Yeah, I'd imagine and there is another question here. What accessibility testing did you do? Using the same icon for different functional and things Yeah, so accessibility is a great. It's a great question. We You know, I accept so we We consulted on accessibility at the beginning and made some decisions on it and so we've done Preliminary accessibility work. I would say we were mindful of accessibility the whole way through the project But we we just did preliminary work on it However, um accessibility is a big project for us this year And uh, the focus on on that, you know, including on the mobile because we don't have much broader support from mobile devices as well So accessibility is a huge team for us this year. We were mindful of it as we built the project But yeah, we haven't enough work done on it at this stage Um great Sorry Did I interrupt? No, it's just one of the questions there and I um, are these improvements part of the custom team theme? Um Funnily enough, we actually the team was very light that we customized what we actually got innovations do or what they chose to do was uh, customize the um The course format so we have two Parts of it that are customized so it sits under the umbrella of academic programs But outside of that it still acts like the move team that's off the shelf So the custom format was one was the module hole, which is the six boxes that sit across the top So that's the hibernian module hope that we customize and then we have Each one of the tiles down below. That's the hibernia course format. Okay, so we had the two different types of Course format customized. We didn't really touch the overall team So and at the outside of the academic program it still acts like the move team Uh, yeah the icons, um Lava redesigned a full set so for pdf 6l um word documents. We just replaced it with a um A scalable uh An svg wasn't at laura A scalable vector uh graphic So we've replaced anywhere that it'd show a pdf icon an excel icon with the single File icon so it was easy enough to do. Um, I think And we want yeah, we want to do this as well because we have collaboration platform so students now have a Have a mobile based Collaboration platform and we we sync the moodle calendar events over to the collaboration platform And so we actually a different one to the icons to to carry over to the mobile apps. Um, they're Larger actually on the phone. So again, we had icon set in different sizes with slightly more detail But clearly related clearly related to each other Um, just one one one question there, uh, how did academics and staff feel about these ui improvements? They were very surprised very shocked and actually delighted But one of the big things I've been working on at the moment was because the Gray book was separated out at meeting to each one of the module hubs Um, I've been working with a plugin. Um called my feedback That's a really nice plugin. But what it does is it allows the assessments team or academic team to view an individual's full I would just say assessment portfolio over the entire program So it's not just giving you a snapshot of each individual module, but you can filter it out So, um, that was that's one of the big things I'm working on at the moment Hopefully roll that out in the next couple of weeks. Um, yeah, so it's still we're still building Still building and running. I know our time is up, but actually I think the question about the academic team is a really good one We Really went out of our way to work closely with the academic teams the whole way through this process So that again, they were You know, they were involved and they knew what was coming and so on but as as Justin said, they were surprised Essentially, which how we simplified the system Okay Thank you so much. There's another question there from Carl. I think Lavra was gonna answer that You can answer that in the chat as well.  So carly should answer Question there, but thank you so much. That's some fantastic work you're doing and thank you for sharing Thanks for an eye. Thanks for an eye. Thanks everybody Thank you


Hello everybody, my name is Abdel. I'm an internet crypto experts company in France and today I'll be presenting our work along with Sonia Belaille, Jean-Sébastien Corron, Emmanuel Prouf and Mathieu Rivain about the random probing security of masking schemes against sign channel attacks. So most cryptographic algorithms are usually secure when an adversary only has access to the inputs and outputs of this algorithm. However, when implemented on hardware, these algorithms become vulnerable to so-called sign channel attacks where an adversary can also observe the physical leakage of the device such as power consumption or execution time and exploit its dependence with the secret values of the algorithm. And so to protect implementations on embedded devices, many countermeasures have been developed. The most widely used of them is the masking countermeasure, where the idea is to split a sensitive variable X into n values that we call shares, where the first n minus 1 values are generated uniformly at random from the underlying group. And the last element is the combination of the random elements and the secret value. And the idea here is to break the dependence of the secret with any set of n minus 1 shares, making it difficult to recover the value of the secret as the number of the shares grows. And so to reason about the security of masking schemes in theory, the community introduced what we call leakage models. In general, an algorithm is said to be secure in a leakage model if the leaking variables do not reveal any information about the secrets. Now there are three main models that vary in terms of convenience for security proofs and closeness to reality of physical leakage. The first one is the probing model where we consider that during an execution there is a fixed number of T leaking variables. The second one is the random probing model where each variable leaks with a probability P. And the last one is the noisy leakage model where all variables leak with some noise. And in fact, as a model that describes the reality of leakage, it becomes less convenient for proofs. And until now, the most widely used one is the probing model, but it has recently been challenged since it does not capture very well the reality of physical leakage. And so researchers have been trying to establish security properties in the other models. Now there is actually a reduction property established in 2014 that allows to move from one model to another. It states that if a certain algorithm is secure in the probing model, then it is also secure in the random probing one. But in this part of the implication, the security parameter is reduced as the size of the algorithm grows. So it is not a very tight reduction. On the other hand, the second part of the reduction from random probing to noisy leakage is tighter and more convenient to use. Which is why our work tries to reason in the random probing model since it is still more convenient in terms of security proofs than the noisy leakage one. Now there are some constructions that already exist in the random probing model. Mainly two of them are based on expander graphs, but they are not very simple to use and the tolerated leakage probability is not made explicit by the authors. The more recent work from 2018 is based on secure multi-party computation protocols and it tolerates a leakage probability of about 2 to the minus 25 with a complexity polynomial in the security parameter. However, this polynomial is not made explicit by the authors in the work. And so our work is another one based in the random probing model and our contributions are threefold. We first introduce a new automatic formal verification tool that we call reps, which given a small circuit on our algorithm computes the parameters for which it is random probing secure. We also provide new composition and expansion properties to make small circuits composable in a global random probing secure circuit while achieving arbitrary security levels under certain conditions and we show the complexity of such a strategy. Finally, we exhibit an instantiation with new construction from base gadgets that fulfill the expansion property as verified by our tool. And we show that for a given security parameter kappa, we are able to achieve a complexity in kappa to the 7.5 while tolerating a leakage probability of about 2 to the minus 8. So what is this random probing security that I keep mentioning? For our definitions, we consider circuits that are directed graphs, as you can see on the example on the left, which edges are the variables that we call wires and that leak each with probability p. And the vertices are the operation gates. Now we can have additional multiplication gates, we can have random gates that generate random values, and we can have copy gates that output two fresh copies of an input variable. And in our model, we don't consider leakage on output wires, since when composing several circuits, the output wires of a circuit are just the input wires in the next circuit. So in the random probing model, since each wire leaks independently with probability p, we try to formalize this by the notion of a set of leaking wires w. Now this set can be thought of as a random variable output from a random process in which each wire in the circuit is added to w with probability p independently of the other wires. Now such a circuit is said to be p epsilon random probing secure. If for any set w of leaking wires, this set should be independent from the secret inputs, meaning that it does not require the knowledge of the secret values to be simulated. Now if it is independent, then we say that we have a simulation success. If not, we say that we have a simulation failure, and we associate this failure event with a probability function epsilon. And so actually to determine the random probing security of a circuit, we would need to compute the value of this failure event probability. Now it can be observed that when acquiring a set of wires w, since each wire is leaking independently with probability p, then the probability of having such a set follows a binomial distribution with respect to the value p and the total number of wires in the circuit s. And since epsilon is the probability of having a failure event, we can actually express it as a function of p. We can say that epsilon is the sum over all sets w for which there is a simulation failure of their corresponding probability of acquisition. So it's the sum of probabilities of all the failure events. And we can also express this epsilon slightly differently by grouping the failure sets w with respect to their sizes. So if we denote ci, the number of sets w of size i for which there is a failure event, then epsilon is simply the sum over all sizes from one to s of the coefficient ci times the corresponding acquisition probability. And using this expression, we can exhibit an algorithm that, given a circuit of s wires, computes the corresponding coefficient ci to get the value of epsilon in terms of p. And basically what our algorithm wraps does is that it computes the coefficients of epsilon c1 through cs. It will iterate over all sizes from one to s, enumerate the corresponding sets w of size i, and apply a set of rules inspired from Masquerif, which is a verification tool in the probing model from 2015, to determine whether each set is independent from the secret inputs. And finally, the coefficient ci will be the number of failures that we were able to detect in the list L. Now indeed, this algorithm is interesting for small circuits as when the size of the circuit grows, computing these coefficients becomes exponentially hard. But testing security for small circuits can be interesting, especially when we try to deduce global security through composition properties like we do in our work. And so in addition in our paper, we offer a couple of more optimizations that allow us to increase the size of the circuits that we are able to feed to our algorithm with a reasonable execution time. So as I just said in our work, we also try to achieve global random probing security from small composable circuits. And so we reason on small n-share circuits that we call gadgets and that compute a certain functionality. So for example, an n-share addition gadget outputs the sum of its two n-share inputs. And we show that if given such gadgets for each basic gate operation that are random probing composable for parameters T, Epsilon and P, then a circuit that composes them will also be globally random probing secure with a failure probability that is multiplied by the size of the circuit. And this is because each gadget in the circuit fails with a probability Epsilon. So the overall case failure is when at least one of the composed gadgets fail. And so concerning the random gate, it can be seen that an n-sharing of a random value is simply an independent random values, which is why we don't necessarily mention a gadget for randomness since it will trivially verify the property. And so the definition of random probing composability is just a more developed definition of random probing security. We will still consider a set W of leaking wires for the simulation success and failure. But in addition, we will also consider any set of T or less output wires. And these two sets should be simulated from at most T-shares of each input. Now, this additional constraint allows us to have an invariant in the composition notion. Since for each gadget, we can achieve a perfect simulation of the leaking wires plus T-shares of each output sharing from at most T-shares of each input sharing. And since when composing circuits, the internal output and input wires are directly connected, this allows us to have the global random probing security property for the resulting circuit. Now, in addition to composing gadgets for global random probing security, we also exhibit a property that allows composable gadgets to be expanded and achieve arbitrary security levels. And this is a revisited strategy of the multi-party computation approach from 2018. The expansion strategy consists in using and share gadgets for basic operations that are random probing expandable and use them to replace a base circuit where each wire leaks with probability P by an expanded circuit where each gate is replaced by the corresponding gadget and each wire by n wires carrying a sharing of the original wire. Now, in fact, this allows us to replace the leakage probability P of a wire in the original circuit by the failure event probability epsilon in the expanded gadget simulation. Because if a simulation fails, then one needs the full input sharing for the gadget simulation, which corresponds to leaking the corresponding wire value in the base case. And this strategy can be applied recursively on the base circuit, amplifying the security level from the original circuit until we achieve a desired security level. And this works as long as epsilon is strictly smaller than P. Now, to do this, the gadgets should verify what we call random probing expandability, which is a more advanced definition of the random probing composability. As before, since we are still composing gadgets, we will still have the same definitions with the T output wires and T input wires. Meanwhile, since in the base case, each wire as input of a gate leaks independently, then a gadget should have a failure probability, which is independent for each input, which is why our failure event probabilities are epsilon on the first input, epsilon on the second input, and epsilon squared on both. Now, in addition, in case of failure in a composed gadget, we should still be able to have a perfect simulation in the gadgets that are directly connected to it in the circuit. And a necessary condition to have this is to be able to choose at least one set of N-1 output wires for which the simulation succeeds along with the set W. Now, having access to N-1 shares plus the original input wire in the base case simulation, this way, in case of a failure event in a composed gadget, we will still be able to produce a simulation in the resulting circuit with the right number of input shares. So in this condition, we are really allowed to choose any set of N-1 output wires and have at least one simulation success. Now, using this definition, we show that any N-share gadget that is random probing expandable, then the expanded gadget to the gate level is also expandable with a failure probability f to the power k as we desired. In addition, we show that such an expandable gadget is also composable with a failure function 2 times epsilon, which is not very complicated to see since the expandability is just composability with some additional conditions on the simulation. And finally, using these two results, we see that using expandable gadgets and the expansion strategy on a base circuit, we can achieve random probing security and choose the number of expansions to perform to achieve an arbitrary security level. And to verify the composability and expandability of small gadgets, we add some modifications to our verification tool graphs in order to compute the necessary parameters for each of the properties. Now, it is clear that the difference with random probing security verification is that we have to consider output wires as well in the simulation and consider failure when a simulation needs more than t-shears of the inputs. So, having these conditions in mind, we include the verification of these two properties in our tool. In our work, we are able to instantiate the expansion strategy with a three-share gadgets construction that we show our random probing expandable. The first here is a construction of a three-share copy gadget that outputs two fresh copies v and w of the variable x. For each of the copies, we use three random values that are added twice to each output in a circular order. For example, for the first output, we add r0, r1 and r2 to the three output shares, and then we add r1, r2, r0. Now, in this way, we have output shares that are randomized, and their combination gives us the original value x, and the same thing goes for the second output. Now, for the construction of addition gadgets, we use almost the same idea for each of the inputs x and y, but we change the order in which the random values are added to the outputs. So, as you can see, the column of randoms r1, r2, r0 does not directly follow the column r0, r1, r2, as in the copy gadget. And this allows us to mix up the random elements so that intermediate variables become more independent from one another. And finally, the multiplication gadget starts by refreshing the inputs x and y using the exact same principle as the above gadgets, and then it performs the product of shares to compute the final result. Now, the combination of the shares product is done while adding some random values in between each combination, which is also to break dependencies with intermediate variables. And feeding these gadgets to our verification tool graphs, we verify that they are random probing expandable with parameters t equal to 1, the function epsilon with the smallest exponent of p of 3 over 2, and they tolerate a leakage probability of about 2 to the minus 8. So, I will use this construction as an example to reason about the complexity of the expansion strategy. Now, to determine the complexity of the expansion strategy, we use linear algebra representing each circuit as a vector of its number of gates for each of the basic operations, add, copy, multiplication, and random. And given the gadgets used for this strategy, we will construct a matrix where each column is the vector corresponding to each of the gadgets, and the last column for the randomness only generates and random values. So, in this case, we only have the value of 3 in the last position in the matrix for three share gadgets. Now, using the eigen decomposition of the matrix, we can see that when expanding a circuit, the gates vector for the resulting circuit is just the result of the matrix to the power of the expansion level multiplied by the vector of the original circuit. And so, the complexity of this operation strongly depends on the eigenvalues of the so-called matrix. Now, another observation that we can make is that we only have multiplication gates in the multiplication gadget. So, the third row has zeros except in the third position. And using this observation, it can be checked that the eigenvalues of the matrix are just the eigenvalues of the sub matrix MAC, the number of multiplication in the multiplication gadget, and the number of randoms in the last column. So, the complexity of the compiled circuit expresses in terms of the maximum of these eigenvalues to the power the expansion level K. Now, for a certain security parameter kappa and a failure function epsilon of amplification order D, which is the smallest exponent of P that we have in the function. So, to achieve the security level, we need the expanded failure probability almost equal to the security, true to the power of minus the security parameter. So, we can express the complexity in terms of kappa to the power E, where E is a function of the maximum of the eigenvalues and the amplification order. Now, in our three-share construction, we have E equal to 7.5 since our maximum of the eigenvalues is equal to 21, and the amplification order as computed by our tool is 3 over 2. And so, this is how we reason about the complexity of the expansion strategy. Now, if you want to compare our strategy with the expansion from 2018, first of all, what we call a random probing expandability is equivalently called composable security in their work. Achieving this property in our case is done by constructing gadgets that verify the necessary conditions. Their work is based on the use of secure multi-party computation protocols. And for the instantiation part, we constructed a three-share gadgets that we show our random probing expandable while they use an already existing protocol due tomorrow from 2006 to instantiate their strategy. Complexity-wise, we achieve a complexity that expresses in the security parameter to the 7.5, and while comparing their analysis with ours, we saw that they achieve a complexity in the security parameter to the 7.87. While these two complexities are close in terms of tolerated leakage probability, we can tolerate up to a value of 2 to the minus 8 while they tolerate p equal to 2 to the minus 25. So, for an almost equal complexity, we can tolerate the leakage much higher than theirs. So, to conclude, we provide a public implementation sage of our verification tool for users to test on small circuits. We introduced new notions of composition and expansion for achieving global arbitrary random probing security levels, and we instantiate these properties with a concrete construction that we show using our tool tolerates a leakage, a certain leakage probability with a complexity depending on the security parameter. And last but not least, we also provide a full implementation of the expansion strategy that operates on small circuits, and we provide an implementation of the AES algorithm in C language that uses the expanded gadgets as a concrete example of usage of the expansion procedure. And finally, for further works, we aim to look more into complexity and tolerated leakage probability trade-offs, and we also try to look more into generic constructions that satisfy the introduced properties for any number of shares rather than a fixed one. This will be the end of my presentation, and I would like to thank you all for your attention.


And we move to the breakout rooms. So the last talk we have, and not least, it's Claudia. So please share your screen and introduce yourself. Thank you. Thank you. So you have 20 minutes for the presentation. Is it OK now you see? Yeah. OK, so good afternoon, everybody. I am Crude Lecombe, worker at Lorraine University in France. And as chairman of the IUCR UNESCO Africa Initiative for Developing Crystallography and All-Connected Science. What I will discuss with you today is electron density and how we can get electron density and spin density from accurate x-ray and polarized neutron diffraction experiments. First, why we want to study electron density? In fact, electron density is very important. If you remember Hoenn-Betkoen theorem, the total energy of a system is a functional of the density. Therefore, density governs all interaction in a system and emerges as a bridge between structure and properties. Furthermore, molecular structure is determined by the associated electron density distribution because there is a system mapping between the structure and the electron density, which we can observe by x-ray diffraction, which can be calculated by DFT, the theoretical calculation. The Helman-Pheneman theorem also says that for a given arrangement of nuclei, the electron density uniquely determines the force acting on the nuclei, which are, in fact, classical electrostatic forces. Why do we want to do experimental electron density? It is because they permit to study difficult systems, which are sometimes not available with DFT calculation. This also would validate theoretical calculation and their related properties. Our ultimate goal is to make, to construct experimentally, a common model of the one electron-reduced electron density matrix using x-rays, some sort of magnetic scattering, neutron polarized and non-polarized diffraction and Compton scattering. For that, if you want to see what here is one electron-reduced density matrix, and we will use neutron diffraction to see the nuclei, x-ray diffraction to see the electron density, x-ray magnetic diffraction also to have the spin density and polarized neutron to have the spin density. Compton scattering and magnetic Compton scattering will give us the momentum of the electrons and the interatomic terms. Very important for looking to the very delocalized electrons. So we will have many experiments, x-ray diffraction, polarized neutron diffraction, Compton scattering, for example. And we will, from x-ray diffraction, we get structure factor, magnetic structure factor for polarizing, excuse me, and Compton profiles for Compton scattering. We will mix all these experiments together to get our one electron density matrix by this square. And we will minimize this function, which is all these chi-square that you see here. We can also add some other experiments like NMR, NQR, or x-ray magnetic diffraction. So first x-ray diffraction, everybody knows the intensity that we are measuring is, in fact, this product of the square of the interference function times the square of the scattering of the structure factor. The structure factor is a Fourier transform of the electron density. But what else we are measuring at a certain temperature, what we analyze is a dynamic electron density, which is, in fact, the static electron density, which we would calculate with DFT calculation, convoluted by the atomic probability density function due to the temperature. Due to the convolution theorem, in fact, this structure factor is the static structure factor times the Debye-Roller factor. And it is a static structure factor, which is very important for me, in which you see Fj which is a scattering or form factor, which is a Fourier transform of the electron density of atom G. That is, in fact, the curve that you see of the scattering factor as a function of the resolution. You see that mostly the core electrons are seen by x-ray. And the valence electron are seen only at low resolution. And that shows the electrons that I want to model. When people do what we call a crystal structure, they use a very simple model, which is called the IAM model, independent atom model. The electron density in the unit cell is the sum of all atoms of the spherical, non-perturbed, free electron density. It means that we can go very structurally every time and very short time. It is simple, but accurate enough for crystal structure. You can get good coordinates, but only for non-hydrogen atom. And as you see, you have almost 1 million already published crystal structure. The problem is that with this simple model, you cannot see the interatomic bonding. You can't difficult to see the hydrogen atom. And the anisotropic displacement parameters due to temperature are not accurate. And we have now better, very good detectors, which enable us to go much further than that. So the historical model of electron density that I will show here. In fact, for each atom, we see that each atom is electron density of the core electrons of the independent or the independent atom density plus a term, which is a deformation density. This deformation density is expressed as a function of radial function times an angular function, which are centered on the center of all atoms. And that's this term that we want to measure with our eyes. The most important model is so-called the Hansen and Coppens model, which we have coded in this software, Mopro. And for each atom, the electron density is shared between the core electron density, the valence electron density supposed to be spherical, but populated with PV electrons. You see a value here, which is the extension, contraction parameter of the electron density plus this non-spherical term times of a radial function, very often a slider type function, multiplied by spherical homonyx. For example, this here, as you see, if you want to modelize this sp2 carbon residual density after spherical atom refinement, you see that it is very easy to model it with octapolar real spherical homonyx 3 plus 3. So a multiple analysis gives you an analytical form of the experimental electron density. We can then calculate properties, the orbital population charge electrostatic potential or electrostatic interaction energy. It's very important for doing, for example, bio-population using molecular experimental force field for molecular dynamics. Here is, for example, one example of a static map, electron density map that we got on sodium nitrocosite, where you see very well here the depletion of electron in the dx squared, x squared minus y squared direction, and the buildup of electron in dx y direction. That is the electrostatic potential of a biological monique. First example, if you look to this crystal, which is mostly made by the association of two cobalt atoms linked by organic ligands here. Calculation in this crystal have shown that the anisotropy of the magnetic properties is explained by the 40 degree tilt of the cobalt 1 and cobalt 2 orbitals. The question was, can we measure it experimentally? What is the angle between cobalt 1 and cobalt 2 orbitals? Here is first, we met x-ray diffraction experiment at very low temperature, 80 k, with a high resolution. And that is what we got when you make a refinement after an independent atom model. So you see here the anisotropy of the D electron here. Very well known, the depletion around the ligand and buildup of electron density in between. After the multipolar refinement, the map is much clearer. It means that we have taken into account all the D electron density. And the result is static electron density map shows really very well the D electron orbitals, the electron density. And also you see the interaction of oxygen at this D x-ray measures y squared. This calculation enables us to look to the projection of the D electron density along the two-fold axis. And as you see, the angle between the orbitals, cobalt 1 and cobalt 2, is 39 degrees, which can be compared to 40 degrees. So you see, this model works very well for explaining the electron density. If you want now to look to magnetic to spin density, then you have to do with neutron diffraction. In neutron diffraction, you have two interactions, the nuclear scattering, which will give you the position of the nuclei. Here is the nuclear structure factor and the magnetic scattering, which will give you the spin density. This magnetic scattering can be written like that, where Bm is a magnetic form factor, which is the Fourier transform of the magnetic density of the electron j here. Multiply here by, if you lose this quantity, in this quantity, you see that you have M perpendicular, which is, in fact, the projection of the magnetic moment onto the scattering plane. So you can get the magnetic moment from this kind of experiments, which is very interesting is that bragg intensity of magnetic and nuclear scattering are of the same order of magnitude. So one will not hide the other. For unpolarized neutrons, we have an incoherent superposition of magnetic and nuclear, which means that we have this formula for the intensity. And for polarized neutrons, you have a coherent superposition of magnetic and nuclear contribution. This important formula for us, because this will give you the possibility of measuring the spin density. Here is what is an experiment. You come here, your neutrons are arriving here. They are polarized. Flip either up or down. And you count in the detectors, i plus or minus. And you measure what we call the flipping ratio, which is this, fn plus fm divided by fn minus fm squared. This is our data to the spin density. Here is the experiment. Here is a neutron half coming here. The polarizing monochromator, the cryo-fipper is here. The sample is here. You see the detector here. Here is one of the instrument at the LLB in France. The spin density that we want to calculate, in fact, is the Fourier transform of the magnetic structure factor. And mu is the magnetic model. S, it can be modelled the same way like the multiple model by modelling with multiples, as you see here. But contrary to X-ray, we have a very, very few limited multipolar development, very few fm's, and very limited multipolar development. So how to get a spin-reserve multipolar model? What we want to do is combine X-ray, neutron, polarizing electron in one single calculation to give our spin-reserve electron length. The electron density, as you know, is the sum over all density of each pseudo-atom. The spin density is the sum of the spin-up minus spin-down atomic electron. So our model is the following one. With split, the charge density is two components, up and down, the charge density is given by this formula.  And for the spin density, it is a different between up and down electron density. And you have this formula. And all these formulas have been coded in a program, which we call MOLANX, which enables you to get the spin and charge density, which we call the spin-resolve electron density, under some constraints, the charge, the electron neutrality. And in other words, all the sum of spin is equal to the maximum. This is very interesting because it allows you to estimate some properties, the orbital population, net charge, electrostatic potential, some magnetization, electrostatic interaction energy. Other properties like energy and infrared optics can be obtained only if you use wave function. Therefore, there is a need to develop a new method to obtain experimental wave function, that is what we have done, which we call the new spin-resolve orbital model, and which has been applied for the systems to a yttrium-titanium pair of sky, which is republished at the end of the year. So it is a long story, in fact, because the charge density can be divided for its core density, balance density, plus some interaction terms between two terms, between A and B, electrons. You have four minutes. Yes, I think it will be fine. Thank you very much. So the electron density is for the core electron is given by this formula, where R is the radial function, which is the population of these radial orbitals for the core electrons. For the valence density, we developed a valence density as this formula here, where you see that our basis function are the product of a radial function times a spherical harmonic function. Therefore, the valence density will be the sum over all valence atomic orbitals, phi A, which is given by this formula, where N i here are the partial population. And what we want to do is to know from our history and neutron experiment, what is the value of N, the number, the partial population, and how are expanded the radial function. And we also can try to calculate an interaction term between two atoms, which is we hope here, which would be calculated that way. And N ij would be the population for this interaction term. So, if you look at this entity, in fact, it is the core, plus this part, which is the valence orbitals scan, that are orbitals, plus the interaction terms that you have here. What are our basic functions? And now sure, we have to normalize everything, which are of the wave function. For the radial slater type function, we have either slater or Gaussian type function. The Gaussian type function are mostly used for the interaction terms. And then the structure factor are calculated like F char or F core, plus F valence, plus down and up, and up, plus F interaction, down and up, whereas the spin is different between the two terms. And you can calculate from that the structure factor in all these terms and refine the structure factor against our data. We have to get the thermal motion and the population of the orbitals, as well as the expansion contraction of the orbitals. We have to have some constraints, the electron neutrality, electric magnetic moment also, and auto normalize atomic orbitals in order we can use them for some calculation. We apply that to the titanium perovskite, etriome titanium perovskite, which is here. Titanium is in the center of the centrosymmetric distorted oxygen, octane, and roll. And in the literature, it had been studied a long time ago, and they showed by calculation and X-ray magnetic scattering that there were orbital ordering for DXY and DZ, XZ orbitals. So that's the space group, the NMR of this one problem. The experiments have been made at synchrotron beam line at spring head of Japan at 20K to 1.67 angstrom minus one resolution in sinus data over on that. And the neutron experiment, polarize neutron as we made at octane, at electric. Yeah, you see when we collected a big, big number of X-ray diffraction data compared to the few number of splitting ratio of neutron diffraction. We made multiple refinement, as I showed before, an orbital model refinement, and you see that they give almost the same goodness of feed, both for X-ray diffraction and polarize neutron diffraction. We have very marginal differences when our interaction terms is identical. If you look to the statistic of the refinement, you see that all models, model one, orbital one, and orbital two with interaction terms are statistically equivalent for X-ray or for neutron. And the chi-square also is the same for all this experiment. Their whole model are statistically unexpected. If you look to now the electron density, calculate it either by the orbital model or the multiple model to see that that looks like very much the same. That's the most important difference that if you look to the orbital model, you see the depletion of the X-ray minus square orbitals and the population of X-ray here and the same for the other plane. You see also here the spin density of the related experiment. And the most important thing as a result is this one. Here are now the orbitals. What I show you here, you cannot see the title, it's the orbital on a titanium atom. We have defined six orbitals, phi one, phi two, phi three, phi four, and phi one is mostly a four S orbital. And we have refined all population of these orbitals as you see phi two is a linear combination of these five orbitals here. And you see that mostly this phi two is populated by this 0.62 electrons for XZ and 0.78 by for YZ. Therefore, phi one and phi two are the main of the titanium orbitals. One is a pure S for S and the second one shows the orbital order. The linear combination of these orbitals is populated by spin up electron as you see here, nothing for spin down. And it is also an excellent agreement with our previous work, which we publish in physical volume to yourself and for some other authors who did work 10 years ago. So the time is over, but if you have one minute to wrap up. Yes, I just have two slides. As you see that now we have trying to see if you have some interaction terms between titanium and oxygen, for example, it would confirm or not that we have some covalency. And as you see here, we have no interaction terms. Therefore, this compound, this peroxygen almost to be ionic. In conclusion, this orbital model has been coded in a new program which we call monance.orbitor. It works well and it is available for everybody. It was applied to the titanium peroxygen. Interaction terms were negligible and this study confirms the orbital order. Next, we want to estimate the interaction term by studying ionic covalency like pyride. We want to test this method on small organic materials. And we want to improve the calculation of the interaction terms. And finally, if we have the wave function, we will try now to calculate derived wave function properties, which is in fact the aim of our work. And I would thank you for your time, sorry for being a little late. Thank you very much. Thank you for the interesting talk and now we can open for the questions and answer. Ali, you can go ahead. Yes, so thank you very much, Cloud, for your interesting talk. I have a partly scientific and maybe slightly philosophical question which is, so you talked about, can you hear me? Just a little. There was a problem at the beginning now. Okay. So you mentioned charge transfer in your talk. Yes. Do you have any way of measure this experiment? The charge transfer? The measure charge transfer experimentally. Yes, yes, yes. In fact... Yeah, experimentally. Experimentally. We have done that, for example, in very, very well-known organic materials such as TTFCA materials, for example, which undergo face transition at ATCA to a conducting state. And for all these materials, we have found that we have a 0.7, if I remember well, 0.7 electron transfer. We can do that, yes. So what if the electron transfer was much less than 0.7? It was 0.3 or 0.2. I have no example for that, but we could do that because, in fact, what we use is we use a theory which is atoms, we look to the topology of the electron density or the topology of the spin density which enables us to partition the atoms in a way we can calculate the charge transfer. Okay, thanks. Is there is any interesting or someone have a question? We have two minutes for a quick question. Okay, please. I have one question. Okay, please. Yeah, so also, please, I am interested on the population, transition of state for the population. So I wish to know if the experiment, this type of experiment can enable us to predict those transitions. Could you repeat the question, please? I am asking. My main focus is about population transfer. Yes. Yeah, so I wish to know if this experiment can enable us to predict such a transition. In fact, if you are able to get good crystal enough, we can predict after the experiment, we may modelize this charge transfer, yes. Okay, so now, if we have lattice vibration maybe in the system, how do you cope that within the experiment? We use, we model the lattice vibration is by the double or double wall of factor. And for example, in this Iterium titanate, we have also two unharmonic terms, but that is something we can do also. And we can model also the thermal vibration. And I think that using our new model of wave function now, we can find a way to calculate the high air vibration frequencies. But that is the future. Oh, okay, thank you. Okay, great. So thank you again for the interesting talk. And I would like to thank all the speaker of this session. And we can give about five to 10 minutes that each speaker can get maybe questions from one of the participants. I mean, if someone has any questions for any of the three speakers of the session, you can raise your hand or write down. Okay, so just speak a little bit loud so we can hear you. Yeah, please. Okay, please. I have a question. I have a question. Yes, please. Please. Okay, please. My question goes this way to the last speaker, please. I want some vibration in the density can affect the outcome of the neutron interactions. And can this vary with location? Please. What you want to know. Thank you. It's for me for closing the question. What you want to know is the role of the neutron. Yes, yes, all of the neutrons. Yeah, we use the neutrons either for having the structure, mostly the hydrogen atom, for example. But more importantly is to get the magnetic structure because the neutrons spin. So we make the spin, we diffract the new, the neutron are diffracted by the magnetic atoms. And then from that we can get the spin density. And to measure the spin density, as I showed before, you have to make a polarized neutron diffraction experiment. If you want to know more, do not hesitate to send me a mail and I will answer you today or tomorrow. Okay. Okay, thank you. So do we have others to question? We have a possibility for two questions. Amadou has a question, Amna. Okay. I would like to thank Claude for this very, very important talk and nice talk. And on behalf of the African Physical Society, so we would like to keep in touch with you for future collaborative action. Because I know that you are also in charge of UNESCO for crystallography in Africa. And I think that there is a possibility also to work with African Physical Society and to see what we can do together. So thank you very much. I thank you very much for this proposition. And you know, at the beginning it was a project between the International Union of Crystallography and UNESCO. But I'm sure that we can discuss that together before I go to UNESCO and discuss that. So no problem. I think it would be very important. That's why I wanted to have a talk also today. Yes, thank you. I am very interested by the physics. Yeah, it's a good opportunity for collaboration and establishing a new maybe way for being in touch and get a good research between Africa scientists and outside. I mean, a broad internet. Absolutely. Yes, thank you. OK, so do we have one question before we move on? If not, then I would like to thank the speaker and I would like to thank you for being around. And we can now move to discuss about what is the breakout room it is. So Ali, maybe you can say something or I just. Yeah.


What's up guys? This is Richard, which to be live. So I just want to give you an updates. It's not good the coronavirus updates and Super Bowl is good 1010 at halftime San Francisco and Kansas City Chiefs are tied at halftime with the Super Bowl But the news that I'm not really liking is the coronavirus now up to 362 dead and 17205 are now infected with the coronavirus. That's the latest update This is your boy Richard must be live and I'm out peace 362 dead 17205 infected with the coronavirus It's true. The number keeps getting bigger 1010 at halftime with the Super Bowl I don't want to ruin your guys Super Bowl. So I don't want to go live too long with this, but Yeah, 362 dead 17205 Now infected with the coronavirus Super Bowl is tied 1010 very close game I hope you guys enjoyed the game. This is your boy Richard must be live and I'm out peace


The other guest is a trustee of AEI, the chairman and CEO of the FMC Corporation, Bob Malott, and the upward trend has continued. We welcome today as our guest of honor that distinguished American, the Vice President of the United States. Mr. Vice President. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. President, thank you all very, very much. Mr. President, the outset of these remarks, let me just pay my respects to you, and thank you for all you do for this wonderful institution, AEI, an institution for which I have so much respect, and I'm delighted to see you, Bob Malott too, and of course I was invited some time ago by Paul McCracken to come here, and I hope that you'll all be interested in the topic that Paul asked me to address, special drawing rights, the snake, and its effect on disintermediation. I am delighted to be here at this AEI forum, and you couldn't have scheduled a better time to discuss public policy. A great many citizens currently are troubled about recent revelations, and I'm grateful for this chance to address some of those concerns of the American people. There's been much criticism and confusion in recent weeks over the administrations, our policies regarding Iran, and I understand the skepticism of the American people. The result, as you all know, according to these opinion surveys, is that the administration's credibility has been hurt. This is especially painful to the President and to me as well, and after all we're in the White House because of the trust that the American people placed in us, and we must restore that trust. And so today I'd like to discuss some of the basic concerns that the American people rightfully have about our policy toward Iran. Questions of why we tried to open channels, open channels with a regime that all of us Americans despise, questions of how we can have a policy of not sending arms to Iran and then seemingly do just the opposite, and questions about the operation of the National Security Council staff. Let me start with a basic concern. Why did we open a dialogue with Iran? There was a country that deeply humiliated the United States by kidnapping our diplomats, burning our flag, and we still have vivid memories of blindfolded Americans being paraded around our embassy there in Tehran, and there is in the hearts of the American people an understandable animosity, a hatred really, to Khomeini's Iran. I feel that way myself to be very honest with you. And so do the President, who has been vilified time and time again by Iran's radical leaders. We're told that most Iranians feel the same way about us, the country that they call the Great Satan. And so why have anything to do with them? I'm sorry I didn't bring a map, but if you look at a map, Iran is all that stands between the Soviets and the Gulf oil states. It's all that stands between the Soviets and a warm water port. Either a disintegrating Iran or an overly powerful Iran could threaten the stability of the entire Middle East, and especially those moderate Arab states, our friends, whose stability and independence are absolutely vital to the national security of the United States. We may not like the current Iranian regime, and I've said we don't, but it would be irresponsible to ignore its geopolitical and strategic importance. And that doesn't mean we should simply appease any Iranian regime. It does mean, however, that we can't ignore this looming transition that will soon take place in Iran. Homeini will pass from the scene. A successor regime will take power. And we must be positioned to serve America's interests, and indeed the interests of the entire free world. Apart from the strategic reasons, humanitarian concern about American hostages in Lebanon provided another reason to open a channel to Iran. The Iranians themselves are not holding our hostages, but we believe they have influence over those who do hold some of our hostages. But let me add something very important. In spite of our bitter feelings toward Iran's leadership, we would have tried to begin a dialogue with Iran whether we had hostages in Lebanon or not. In fact, for three years prior to the first hostage kidnappings, this administration attempted to find reliable, hopefully moderate Iranian channels through which to conduct a responsible dialogue. And more recently, we've been receiving intelligence that pragmatic elements within Iran were beginning to appreciate certain sobering realities. To the east in Afghanistan, we estimate 115,000 Soviet troops are committing atrocities on Iran's Islamic brothers. To the north, 26 Soviet divisions. Right there on Iran's border for whatever opportunities might arise. To the west, Iran is engaged in a war of unbelievably horrible human dimensions. War with Iraq, 12-year-old kids, 14-year-old kids pressed into service, and then ground up in combat. And at home, Iran is teetering on the economic brink right there in its own front yard, 40-percent unemployment rate. Many Iranian leaders understand that their own survival and certainly the rebuilding of their economy may depend on normalizing ties with their neighbors and with the Western world. And so we, for our reasons, and certain elements in Iran for their reasons, in spite of this mutual hatred, began a tentative, probing dialogue which brings us to another question. How can the United States government have a policy against countries sending arms to Iran and then turn around and itself send arms? I know the American people simply don't understand this. And when we started talking to the Iranians, both sides were deeply suspicious of each other, and remain so, I might say. Those Iranians who were taking enormous personal risks by just talking to us felt that they needed a signal that their risks were worth it. And we were told the signal that they required, and we gave them that signal by selling a limited amount of arms, about one-tenth of one-percent of the arms that had been supplied by other countries. And likewise, we needed proof of Iranian seriousness. We required signs of a cessation of Iranian use of terrorism and help in gaining the release of our hostages in Lebanon. And we did see certain positive signs, we have seen them. They opposed, for example, a Pan-American hijacking in Karachi. And immediately after, they denied landing rights. They interceded with the TWA hijackers in Beirut. And of course, three hostages, once held in Lebanon by the Islamic jihad, are today with their families here in the United States of America. And I perhaps President Ford would agree with this, but when you're president, any American held captive against his will anywhere in the world is like your own son or daughter. I know that's the way our president feels about it. But you must remain true to your principles, and I can tell you that the president is absolutely convinced that he did not swap arms for hostages. And still the question remains of how the administration could violate its own policy of not selling arms to Iran. Simple human hope explains it perhaps better than anything else. The president hoped that we could open a channel that would serve the interests of the United States and of our allies in a variety of ways. Call it leadership. Given 2020 hindsight, call it a mistaken tactic if you want to. It was risky, but potentially of long-term value. The shaping of the Iranian policy involved difficult choices. As complex as the public debate on the issue would be, the matter was further clouded by the way in which the president's goals were executed. Specifically, allegations about certain activities of the National Security Council staff, clearly mistakes were made. Our policy of conducting a dialogue with Iran, which was legitimate and arguable, has become entangled with the separate matter of this NSC investigation. A week ago Monday afternoon, the president learned of possible improprieties. A week ago Monday, on Tuesday, he disclosed the problem to the public and instructed the Attorney General to go forward with a full investigation. On Wednesday, he created a bipartisan commission, three outstanding individuals, to review the role of the NSC staff and make recommendations for the future. And just yesterday, he moved to a point, have the court appoint an independent counsel to ensure a full accounting for any possible wrongdoing. The president pledged full cooperation with the United States Congress, urging it to consolidate and expedite its inquiries. Yesterday, he also named Frank Carlucci a seasoned professional with broad experience, so well known to many people here, to serve as his National Security Advisor. This is fast action in anybody's book. These are actions I fully support, in which I believe the American people will judge commendable. The president has moved swiftly, strongly, but let me add this. I am convinced that he will take whatever additional steps may be necessary to get things back on track and get our foreign policy moving forward. As the elected representatives of all the people, he and I have a duty to preserve the public trust and uphold the laws of this country, and we take that duty very, very seriously. I'd like to say something about my own role in all of this. I was aware of our Iran initiative, and I support the president's decision. And I was not aware of, and I oppose, any diversion of funds, any ransom payments, or any circumvention of the will of the Congress, the law of the United States of America. And as the various investigations proceed, I have this to say, let the chips fall where they may. We want the truth, the president wants it, I want it, and the American people have a fundamental right to it. And if the truth hurts, so be it. We've got to take our lumps and move ahead. Politics do not matter. Personalities do not matter. Those who've served the president haven't served the president well don't matter. What matters is the United States of America. And we mustn't allow our foreign policy to become paralyzed by distraction. There can be no denying that our credibility has been damaged by this entire episode. And it's aftermath. We have a critical role to play internationally. And I intend to help the president tackle the challenges that lie before us in the last two years of this administration, putting U.S.-Soviet relations on a new footing, pursuing a breakthrough in arms reduction, building on the potential that I saw so clearly just this past summer for making new strides for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, working to end apartheid, and creating a more hopeful future for all Africans, solidifying the remarkable changes taking place in Asia, combating international terrorism in close conjunction with our allies, and of course, fostering the development of democracy in Central America. And let me add, the freedom of the people of Central America should not, must not, be held hostage to actions unrelated to them. This nation's support of those who are fighting for democracy in Nicaragua should stand on its own merits, not hang upon events related to Iran. The Marxist-Leninist regime in Managua must not benefit from the errors of some people in Washington, D.C. Our administration has a duty to follow a foreign policy that reflects the values of its citizens. This sounds simple, and yet it is often, as so many of you here know, a very complex matter. It's not easy translating general values into specific foreign policy programs. And this is why there's always so much internal debate over our nation's role in world affairs, from Iran to arms reduction. The Reagan administration has two years left, in which to pursue our particular vision of how America's foreign policy should fit America's values. There's one thing, however, on which critics and supporters would agree, U.S. foreign policy must move forward. The U.S. has obligations as leaders of the free world. It has opportunities and responsibilities unmatched by any other country to bring stability to the world. And we must move forward with the trust of the American people, to the extent that that trust has been damaged, it must be repaired. And only the truth can repair that. Our government rules not by force or intimidation, but by earning the confidence and respect of the American people. Our duty must be to uphold that confidence and restore that respect. Sometimes true bipartisanship is really called for. And in my view, now is just such a time, and I have been very pleased that Republicans and Democrats alike have pledged to help get the facts out and move on. A storm is now raging, but when the full truth is known, and it will be, and when the people of American people come to understand that this strong and honest president moves swiftly to correct what might have been wrong, then a forgiving American people, in spite of their misgivings about Iran and weapons and diverted funds, will say, our president told the truth. He took action. Let's go forward together. Thank you very much. All of you to be seated while the Vice President and President Ford leave. Mr. Vice President, we're deeply indebted to you for that very moving address.


A huge twist in the case of someone we've been telling you about, an accused teenage serial rapist. This happened in Penal County. Tyler Coast was just 18 when police arrested him nearly a year ago, accusing him of sexually assaulting nearly a dozen teens. Well, now his defense says Facebook is shedding new light on a possible plot against him. ABC 15th, Mary Ellen Recenda is live in Penal County and Mary Ellen, what is the county attorney's response to all of this? You know, Katie, the county attorney typically will not respond on ongoing cases. However, according to his response, which was filed today in court, he is accusing the defense of basing their case on speculation. And I don't think it's that far of a stretch to for reaction of victims or friends of victims to respond in such a way. If anyone ever thought Facebook messaging is private, think again, defense attorneys for Tyler cost are asking the court to order access to Facebook messages from at least three female victims and three other teens court documents say that these messages show a plot to get revenge against cost for being a quote player. One victim Facebook message quote, he needs to be taught a lesson. While another said quote, he's going to feel the pain he put every girl through and another victim even responded quote, let's blank with his mind and his car. That very same victim even claims in those Facebook messages that cost hadn't touched her when they have had relationship with a person. It's very real for them and they're conflicted with what happened, which may have been very bad and traumatic with real, true, sincere feelings of love and affection. According to court documents, the six girls got together to watch the movie. John Tucker must die where a group of girls take revenge on their ex boyfriend. We have a solid case. We have 13 separate victims, right? Some of which didn't even know each other. Some of which were in other states. Now cost is facing some 30 charges against him for 11 of the 13 victims that have actually come forward. And this motion to get access to some of their Facebook pages, it's going to be heard next Monday. Mary Ellen, thank you.


In this lesson, we will discuss medications used to treat high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. Hypertension is the leading risk factor associated with death in the world. It is affected by a wide variety of factors, including increasing age, black African or Caribbean ethnicity, being overweight, and having a lack of physical activity. Hypertension is typically asymptomatic and only detected through opportunistic screening. Symptoms only manifest when blood pressure reaches very high levels and can include headaches, dizziness and nosebleeds. Blood pressure is determined by the cardiac output balanced against systemic vascular resistance. The process of maintaining blood pressure is complex and involves numerous physiological mechanisms, including arterial beroceptors and the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system. Dysfunction in any of these processes can lead to the development of hypertension. This may be through increased cardiac output, increased systemic vascular resistance, or both. Now, let's do a quick review of blood pressure categories. Blood pressure numbers of less than 120 slash 80 are considered within the normal range. Elevated blood pressure is when readings consistently range from 120 to 129 systolic and less than 80 diastolic. People with elevated blood pressure are likely to develop high blood pressure and less steps are taken to control the condition. Hypertension Stage 1 is when blood pressure consistently ranges from 130 to 139 systolic or 80 to 89 diastolic. At this stage of high blood pressure, doctors are likely to prescribe lifestyle changes and may consider adding blood pressure medication based on risks of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attack or stroke. Hypertension Stage 2 is when blood pressure consistently ranges at 140 slash 90 or higher. At this stage of high blood pressure, doctors are likely to prescribe a combination of blood pressure medications and lifestyle changes. If blood pressure readings suddenly exceed 180 slash 120, this is a hypertensive crisis and requires immediate medical attention. Management for hypertension is mainly based on the hypertension stage, risk of developing cardiovascular events and organ damage, as well as taking into account any concomitant diseases, such as diabetes or chronic kidney disease. Lifestyle changes are crucial for all patients, especially in the long term, and include things like quitting smoking, drinking alcohol in moderation, maintaining a healthy weight, reducing dietary sodium and staying physically active. There are four main classes of medications that are used to treat hypertension, ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers or ARB, thiozide diuretics, and long-acting calcium channel blockers. There is a lot of variability in terms of how individuals respond to different medications, so it's important to follow up to see how the medications are working. Usually, therapy begins by choosing one medication. Broadly speaking, ACE inhibitors are started in patients at high risk for coronary artery disease, including those with a prior STEMI, heart failure, asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. A common side effect of ACE inhibitors is chronic cough, so ARB are often started in patients who don't tolerate ACE inhibitors, mostly because of cough. Thiozide diuretics and calcium channel blockers show very similar efficacy to ACE inhibitors and their first-line therapy in patients of African descent. But diuretics have a lot of metabolic effects, so they can't be given to patients with high blood glucose and cholesterol levels. The blood pressure goal while on medications varies based on the initial blood pressure, age, and other health conditions. But in general, it's ideal to have an out-of-office blood pressure below 135-85 and an office blood pressure below 140-90. If the blood pressure isn't improving within a month, then the dose is usually increased or a second medication from a different class is often started. Some combinations are useful while others aren't. ACE inhibitors and ARB should not be combined and instead either can be combined with a thiozide diuretic or a calcium channel blocker. Angiotensin receptor blockers or ARB for short are a group of medications that help decrease blood pressure and are typically used to treat hypertension or high blood pressure and heart failure. ARB usually end in sartan like Candisartan, Valsartan, herbisartan, and Lossartan and are taken orally. ARB work by binding to angiotensin-pantereceptors on vascular smooth muscles and the adrenal glands, which prevents angiotensin from binding. Normally, when angiotensin combines to these receptors on blood vessels, it causes them to constrict, which increases blood pressure. On the other hand, in the adrenal glands, angiotensin too stimulates the release of aldosterone, which increases the absorption of sodium and water in the kidneys. This results in increased blood volume, which also increases blood pressure. Once ARB are administered, angiotensin can't bind to angiotensin receptors, which decreases vasoconstriction as well as aldosterone release by the adrenals. This causes natural uresis or excretion of sodium along with water by the kidneys. In this way, ARB effectively lower blood pressure. However, ARB can also cause some side effects. The most common ones are mild and nonspecific and include headache, dizziness, and drowsiness. ARB have also rarely been associated with the development of angioedema, which is a fluid accumulation and swelling of the eyes, lips, tongue, pharynx, and glottis, and can be life-threatening. Other side effects include hypotension, tachycardia, and hypoglycemia. Finally, ARB decrease potassium excretion in the urine, and this could lead to hyperkalemia, so it's important for clients who are taking ARB to avoid taking potassium supplements and salt substitutes that contain potassium. Deuretics are medications that act on the kidneys to increase the production of urine, therefore elimination of water from the body. There are five main types of deuretics, carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, osmotic deuretics, loop deuretics, potassium-sparing deuretics, and last but not least, thiozide and thiozide-like deuretics, which we'll get intimately acquainted with during this video. The major indication for deuretics is for the management of hypertension and edomatis states. Since these medications cause water loss through the urine, it leads to decreased plasma volume and cardiac output resulting in lower blood pressure. So what is a thiozide, and what is a thiozide-like deuretic? Well, all these medications have the same effect, the different stems from their chemical structure. Thiozide and thiozide-like deuretics are medications that block the sodium chloride importer in the distal convoluted tubule in order to increase urine output. Thiozides are used mainly as first line anti-hypertensive agents since they decrease plasma volume. This also makes them useful as a second line therapy to treat edomatis states caused by conditions like heart failure or cirrhosis. Calcium channel blockers are drugs that reduce the movement of calcium into cells of the heart and vessels. This reduces the strength of heart contractions and relaxes the arteries, allowing them to remain more open, lowering blood pressure. There are two different types of calcium channel blockers, which are called dehydropyridines and non-dehydropyridines. Dehydropyridines block calcium channels located in the muscle cells of the heart and arterial blood vessels, thereby reducing the entry of calcium ions into the cell. By blocking these channels, calcium channel blockers promote blood vessel dilation, as well as changes in heart function, including reductions in heart rate, the strength of contractility, and speed of conduction within the heart. Non-dehydropyridines widen blood vessels in the same way as dehydropyridines. However, they have additional effects on the heart that can help control a rapid heart rate. Calcium channel blockers can cause several side effects, such as fatigue and swelling in the abdomen, feet, and legs. Anyone who experiences worsening side effects should talk to a doctor about changing medications or reducing the dosage.