Computer scientists launch counteroffensive against video game cheaters

Cheat detection system could gracefully kick out cheating players

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS

Research News

 

IMAGE: DR. LATIFUR KHAN, PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE IN THE ERIK JONSSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE view more 

CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS

University of Texas at Dallas computer scientists have devised a new weapon against video game players who cheat.

The researchers developed their approach for detecting cheaters using the popular first-person shooter game Counter-Strike. But the mechanism can work for any massively multiplayer online (MMO) game that sends data traffic to a central server.

Their research was published online Aug. 3 in IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing.

Counter-Strike is a series of games in which players work in teams to counter terrorists by securing plant locations, defusing bombs and rescuing hostages. Players can earn in-game currency to buy more powerful weapons, which is a key to success. Various software cheats for the game are available online.

"Sometimes when you're playing against players who use cheats you can tell, but sometimes it may not be evident," said Md Shihabul Islam, a UT Dallas computer science doctoral student in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and lead author of the study, who plays Counter-Strike for fun. "It's not fair to the other players."

In addition to fair play, cheating also can have an economic impact when dissatisfied players leave to play other games, Islam said.

Cheating incidents also can have serious consequences in esports, a fast-growing industry with annual revenues close to $1 billion. Cheating can result in sanctions against teams and players, including disqualification, forfeiture of prize money and a ban on future participation, according to the Esports Integrity Commission based in the United Kingdom.

Detecting cheating in MMO games can be challenging because the data that goes from a player's computer to the game server is encrypted. Previous research has relied on decrypted game logs to detect cheating after the fact. The UT Dallas researchers' approach eliminates the need for decrypted data and instead analyzes encrypted data traffic to and from the server in real time.

"Players who cheat send traffic in a different way," said Dr. Latifur Khan, an author of the study, professor of computer science and director of the Big Data Analytics and Management Lab at UT Dallas. "We're trying to capture those characteristics."

For the study, 20 students in the UT Dallas class Cyber Security Essentials for Practitioners downloaded Counter-Strike and three software cheats: an aimbot, which automatically targets an opponent; a speed hack, which allows the player to move faster; and a wallhack, which makes walls transparent so players can easily see their opponent. The researchers set up a server dedicated to the project so the students' activity would not disrupt other online players.

The researchers analyzed game traffic to and from the dedicated server. Data travels in packets, or bundles, of information. The packets can be different sizes, depending on the contents. Researchers analyzed features, including the number of incoming and outgoing packets, their size, the time they were transmitted, their direction and the number of packets in a burst, which is a group of consecutive packets.

By monitoring the data traffic from the student players, researchers identified patterns that indicated cheating. They then used that information to train a machine-learning model, a form of artificial intelligence, to predict cheating based on patterns and features in the game data.

The researchers adjusted their statistical model, based on a small set of gamers, to work for larger populations. Part of the cheat-detection mechanism involves sending the data traffic to a graphics processing unit, which is a parallel server, to make the process faster and take the workload off the main server's central processing unit.

The researchers plan to extend their work to create an approach for games that do not use a client-server architecture and to make the detection mechanism more secure. Islam said gaming companies could use the UT Dallas technique with their own data to train gaming software to detect cheating. If cheating is detected, the system could take immediate action.

"After detection," Khan said, "we can give a warning and gracefully kick the player out if they continue with the cheating during a fixed time interval.

"Our aim is to ensure that games like Counter-Strike remain fun and fair for all players."

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Other authors of the study include Swarup Chandra PhD'18, a research engineer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and UT Dallas computer science doctoral student Bo Dong. Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham, Founders Chair in Engineering and Computer Science, professor of computer science and executive director of the Cyber Security Research and Education Institute at UT Dallas, is senior author of the study.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Security Agency, IBM and Hewlett-Packard Development Co.

OHIO's Franz publishes study on strategies hospitals adopt to address opioid epidemic

OHIO UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

While the world's attention to public health remains focused on COVID-19, Berkeley Franz, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, continues to focus her attention on one of the largest public health crises in the United States today - the opioid epidemic.

Franz, along with Cory Cronin, Ph.D., assistant professor in OHIO's College of Health Sciences and Professions, and José Pagán, Ph.D., professor of public health policy and management at New York University, co-authored the article, "What Strategies Are Hospitals Adopting to Address the Opioid Epidemic? Evidence From a National Sample of Nonprofit Hospitals," to identify what hospitals are doing to combat the opioid epidemic and how they could better address these problems in communities.

The study led by Franz is published in Public Health Reports, the official journal of the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service.

"Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid epidemic was the most vexing health problem," Franz said. "High rates of addiction were cited as one of the main reasons that American life expectancy declined in multiple years, something we rarely see. At the same time, opioid misuse increased to be the greatest causes of preventable death. This study shows that hospitals can play a clear and important role in implementing interventions and effectively treating patients, especially if they are willing to do so on site."

This study is part of ongoing research Franz is doing to understand whether hospitals are addressing the most critical public health needs in their communities. She is also studying institutional barriers to adopting new programs to address opioid misuse, including the presence of bias/stigma among health care professionals.

Through their research, Franz, Cronin and Pagán found that hospitals often don't do evidence-based programs despite evidence that treating the patient at the hospital rather than through a referral leads to more effective treatment and reduces death from subsequent overdoses.

"With opioid misuse, people often end up in hospitals for care, which is a great place to address other, secondary health consequences that come from the misuse," Franz explained. "Aside from an actual overdose itself, people can get infections at the injection site, heart and skin infections, infectious diseases linked to intravenous drug use and more. By taking care of these individuals in a hospital setting, medical professionals can also address these issues as well as introduce treatment for the underlying substance use disorder."

To compile data, the researchers analyzed data from a 20% sample of all U.S. hospitals to determine what they were doing to address opioid abuse.

The researchers looked at whether hospitals offered specific kinds of services - and specifically whether the hospitals were directly addressing the issue or redirecting patients to primary care or other outpatient care.

"While individual health needs assessments and implementation strategies are publicly available, our hope is that by aggregating strategies and trends, we can provide a snapshot of the overall picture, which may be helpful to decision makers in health care organizations or public agencies," Cronin said.

The study shows that nonprofit hospitals invest in clinical strategies and risk education, but they could do more by initiating medication-assisted treatment at the hospitals and adopting harm reduction initiatives, such as distributing naloxone or offering syringe exchanges.

"We have created a great partnership between Ohio University and New York University researchers interested in the contribution of hospitals to improve the health of our communities," Pagán said. "I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with this great team and bring awareness to the important leadership role hospitals play in our communities to help reduce opioid abuse."

Pagán added that state support is important, as hospitals are more likely to adopt harm reduction programs and other strategies in states that take the lead encouraging the use of these strategies.

Although some hospitals are adopting evidence-based strategies to address opioid misuse, the pandemic is affecting how hospitals can implement such programs effectively. For instance, many hospitals are currently focused on fighting COVID 19, so they may have fewer opportunities to offer substance abuse services. At the same time, the added societal stress of the pandemic can actually exacerbate substance misuse. Also, some hospitals do not offer direct services for those who misuse substances.

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Franz is also holder of the Heritage Career Development Faculty Endowed Fellowship in Population Health, Osteopathic Heritage Foundation Ralph S. Licklider, D.O., Research Endowment, which supported this research study through providing funding support to train/work with Jose A. Pagán and also provided direct funds for carrying out the research itself. 

 

Deafening insects mask true biodiversity assessed via acoustic surveys in Japan

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

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VIDEO: SAMUEL ROSS EXPLAINS THE RESEARCH view more 

https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/248959.php?from=484134

CREDIT: TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN AND OKINAWA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY GRADUATE UNIVERSITY

A collaborative team of ecologists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, has been using recordings of animal noises to assess biodiversity in sub-tropical Japan. The team assessed how effective these acoustic surveys were for pinpointing Okinawa's wild and wonderful fauna in different sonic conditions--and discovered that the incessant choruses of the local cicadas disguise the true diversity of the region.

The work, just published in the journal Ecological Indicators, underlines the great potential that acoustic surveys have for characterising the biodiversity of habitats while also highlighting some major potential pitfalls.

Many scientists believe we are now living through the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history, which has largely been driven by human actions and our exploitation of the environment, but there is general consensus that it is not too late to halt declines in biodiversity if we act now. However, we need to know which species (and how many) are present in any given habitat before designing conservation programmes.

Acoustic surveys

Acoustic surveys--simple audio recordings of the animal sounds in a habitat--offer the potential to record large volumes of data. They can do this relatively cheaply and easily, given that recording devices can be left unattended once set up. This technique also means researchers need not spend lengthy periods in unhospitable or dangerous habitats, species are more likely to be accounted for as they won't be scared away by human presence, and the data can be very sensitive as each species makes unique sounds.

However, the new research shows that consideration must be given to ambient conditions, with the time of day, season, and proximity to urban areas and human activity all likely to interfere to varying extents with the recordings, such that some species cannot be heard. Interestingly, on the sub-tropical island of Okinawa off the coast of Japan, it is the incessant noise of the cicada insects that have the biggest impact in masking the hoots, clicks and chirps of hundreds of native animals.

CAPTION

A bird in Okinawa.

Lead author of the study, Samuel Ross, is a PhD Candidate in Trinity's School of Natural Sciences. He said:

"In total, we used about 230 hours of sound recordings from a wide range of habitats across Okinawa to gain insights into the biodiversity of the region, to characterise how it changes near urban areas, and most importantly, to assess how effective the various audio recording and assessment techniques are in extracting reliable information."

"As you'd expect the weather is important, with heavy winds and rain affecting the information we can get from recordings, and human noise pollution is also problematic. However, it's cicadas that really impact the quality of such assessments during Okinawa's summer months."

To date, most bio-acoustic surveys have been conducted in the Tropics but the field is developing quickly and these monitoring techniques will prove useful in Ireland, which provides homes to a number of iconic, endangered animals.

Many of Ireland's creatures have a cultural significance and the ability to soothe and inspire, while other research is opening our eyes to the power of the acoustic environment in influencing mental health.

Samuel Ross added:

"These methods are still relatively new and the prospect that we can monitor biodiversity using only audio recording equipment is really exciting. I see this as the next frontier in assessing the state of the world's ecosystems."

The study was led by Samuel Ross and Ian Donohue, Associate Professor in Zoology, at Trinity, working closely with colleagues at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), including Professor Evan Economo and Dr Nick Friedman, who run an island-wide project to monitor Okinawa's ecosystems using sound.

Dr Friedman added:

"The forests in Okinawa are really noisy when the cicadas are out. The sound they make is so loud, it's at least annoying if not painful. It conceals a lot of different species that are in the forest because they don't really bother calling to each other while the cicadas are going. Knowing this helps us strategise how to use soundscape recordings to measure biodiversity or track the health of an ecosystem."

CAPTION

A cicada in Okinawan forest

People in developing countries eat less bushmeat as they migrate from rural to urban areas

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE YELLOW-FOOTED TORTOISE (CHELONOIDIS DENTICULATUS), ALSO KNOWN AS THE BRAZILIAN GIANT TORTOISE, CAN BE FOUND IN THE AMAZON BASIL OF SOUTH AMERICA. (PHOTO CREDIT: THAIS MORCATTY) view more 

CREDIT: THAIS MORCATTY

PRINCETON, N.J.-- People around the world, especially in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America, consume wild game, or bushmeat, whether out of necessity, as a matter of taste preference, or, in the case of particularly desirable wildlife species, to connote a certain social status. Bushmeat consumption, however, has devasted the populations of hundreds of wildlife species and been linked to the spread of zoological diseases such as the Ebola virus.

New Princeton University research finds that when people in developing countries move from rural areas to cities, they consume less bushmeat over time, perhaps because other sources of animal protein are more readily available. They also found that children in urban areas generally have less of a taste for wild game than their parents. In the long term, this could be good news for conservation.

The researchers traveled to Brazil -- one of many countries worldwide experiencing a dramatic migration from rural to urban areas -- and interviewed thousands of adults and children about their wildlife consumption habits.

The study, published in the journal Conservation Biology, is among the first to explore how the consumption of wildlife changes as countries become increasingly urbanized. The results have profound implications for the rapidly growing wildlife trade, which is a multi-billion-dollar industry that threatens human health, drives species extinction, and damages ecosystems.

"In the Amazon, as in most developing countries, people are leaving rural areas and moving into cities. We find -- for whatever reason -- they are reducing their consumption of wild animals over time, providing a needed break for overhunted wildlife," said study co-author David Wilcove, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs and the High Meadows Environmental Institute.

"A decline in per capita consumption of wild animals by urban residents gives us hope that pressure on hunted species may decrease over time. At the same time, we don't know whether this decline will be large enough to compensate for an increasing human population in urban areas," said Willandia Chaves, the lead author of the study, who worked on the project as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton and is now an assistant professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech.

Wilcove and Chaves conducted the study with Denis Valle of the University of Florida, Aline S. Tavares of the Universidade Federal do Amazonas, and Thais Q. Morcatty of Oxford Brookes University.

The researchers surveyed six small towns, three large towns, and Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon Basin. This included 1,356 households and 2,776 school-age children. They studied the consumption of imperiled tortoises and freshwater turtles, as they are among the top five most consumed and traded species in urban areas in the Amazon. An estimated 1.7 million turtles were eaten in northwestern Brazil in 2018.

While subsistence hunting is permitted, most wildmeat consumption in Brazil is illegal. Moreover, the turtle species that were being consumed where this study took place are highly endangered. For this reason, the researchers had to design a survey that would allow interviewees to honestly answer questions without implicating themselves.

CAPTION

The yellow-spotted river turtle was the most consumed throughout the Brazilian regions surveyed by Princeton University researchers.

To do this, they used dominoes. The head of each household (whether male or female) was asked a series of questions about their consumption of turtles (illegal) versus cornmeal (legal).

When asked, "Do you consume this item in your house?" respondents would randomly choose a domino from a bag: one dot represented cornmeal, and two dots for turtles. Because the researchers knew the ratio of one-dot to two-dot dominoes in the bag, they could calculate the consumption rates of turtles while protecting participants' responses by not linking the behavior to an individual participant.

While the domino approach is not new, it has rarely been employed in conservation studies, making this study more cutting-edge. "It's also exciting because it gives us much more reliable answers about sensitive activities than direct questioning does," Wilcove said.

Next, the researchers randomly selected 49 middle and high schools (11 in Manaus, 13 in large towns, and 25 in small towns) to study any generational differences in how much they liked and consumed bushmeat compared to adults. At each school, they randomly selected four classrooms and asked the schoolchildren to complete an anonymous questionnaire, with parental consent. This accounted for 2,700 students in 146 classrooms, and schoolchildren varied from 11 to 18 years in age.

First, the researchers found people generally consumed fewer turtles in larger urban areas. This could be because turtles cost more in larger cities than in small towns, and law enforcement also is likely stronger in larger urban centers. In small towns, on the other hand, the rates of turtle consumption are much higher, perhaps because people living there have ready access to wilder areas where the turtles live or perhaps because enforcement of wildlife laws is lax.

Second, children in urban areas are generally less likely to consume turtles than their parents. Social eating norms could play a role. If other children say it's "uncool" to eat turtles, then other kids might follow suit, or vice versa. Perhaps children consider the conservation implications of eating wildlife. Or perhaps it's simply because children's tastebuds haven't been fully developed. The researchers said more studies are needed to understand children's motivations.

"Is it a taste they will develop later in life, like children refusing to eat vegetables, or is it a lifelong switch?" Wilcove said. "We don't know yet, but the answer will mean a lot to the future of wildlife in the Amazon."

The researchers estimated that the overall consumption of endangered turtles in Amazonas state, the largest state in the Brazilian Amazon, is a very alarming 1.7 million turtles per year. Therefore, programs aimed at reducing consumption of illegal wildlife are urgently needed.

Certain towns seem to be "hotspots" for bushmeat consumption, so conservation efforts in those areas could be particularly important. Importantly, conservation education focused on schoolchildren, including increasing awareness regarding the plight of Amazonian turtles, could have long-term benefits if children forgo eating turtles as they become adults.

"Conservation efforts have focused on things like creating protected areas, working with rural communities to better manage wildlife, and improving enforcement - all important actions. However, unless we also target urban demand for wildlife, we will not be able to effectively address this issue," Chaves said.

"The bushmeat trade, both domestic and international has emerged as a massive threat to biodiversity, comparable to habitat destruction for some places. Yet, our knowledge of what drives this trade and how those drivers may change in the future is surprisingly weak. Until we better understand these issues, we are poorly equipped to solve this growing threat to wildlife," Wilcove said.

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The paper, "Impacts of rural to urban migration, urbanization, and generational change on consumption of wild animals in the Amazon," first appeared in Conservation Biology on Oct. 30, 2020. This research was funded by the High Meadows Foundation.

CAPTION

These yellow-footed tortoises have been captured for human consumption.

Paleontologists uncover three new species of extinct walruses in Orange County

Study gives insight to tusk evolution of the marine mammal

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

Research News

 

IMAGE: MAP & SKULLS view more 

CREDIT: JOURNAL OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

Millions of years ago, in the warm Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California, walrus species without tusks lived abundantly.

But in a new study, Cal State Fullerton paleontologists have identified three new walrus species discovered in Orange County and one of the new species has "semi-tusks" -- or longer teeth.

The other two new species don't have tusks and all predate the evolution of the long iconic ivory tusks of the modern-day walrus, which lives in the frigid Arctic.

The researchers describe a total of 12 specimens of fossil walruses from Orange, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz counties, all estimated to be 5 to 10 million years old. The fossils represent five species, with two of the three new species represented by specimens of males, females and juveniles.

Their research, which gives insights on the dental and tusk evolution of the marine mammal, was published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Geology graduate Jacob Biewer, and his research adviser James F. Parham, associate professor of geological sciences, are authors of the study, based on fossil skull specimens.

Parham and Biewer worked with Jorge Velez-Juarbe, an expert in marine mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who is a co-author of the paper. Velez-Juarbe is a former postdoctoral scholar in Parham's lab and has collaborated on other CSUF fossil research projects. Parham is a research associate at the museum, which provides research opportunities for him and his students.

The researchers teamed to study and describe the anatomy of the specimens, most of which are part of the museum's collection.

"Orange County is the most important area for fossil walruses in the world," said Biewer, first author of the paper who conducted the research for his master's thesis. "This research shows how the walruses evolved with tusks."

Extinct Walrus Species Get Names

Today, there is only one walrus species and its scientific name is Odobenus.

For the new species found in Orange County, the researchers named the semi-tusked walrus, Osodobenus eodon, by combining the words Oso and Odobenus. Another is named Pontolis kohnoi in honor of Naoki Kohno, a fossil walrus researcher from Japan. Both of these fossils were discovered in the Irvine, Lake Forest and Mission Viejo areas.

Osodobenus eodon and Pontolis kohnoi are both from the same geological rock layer as the 2018 study by Parham and his students of another new genus and species of a tuskless walrus, Titanotaria orangensis, named after CSUF Titans. These fossils were found in the Oso Member of the Capistrano Formation, a geological formation near Lake Forest and Mission Viejo.

The third new walrus species, Pontolis barroni, was found in Aliso Viejo, near the 73 Toll Road. It is named after John Barron, a retired researcher from the U.S.Geological Survey and world expert on the rock layer where the specimens were found, Parham said.

Analysis of these specimens show that fossil walrus teeth are more variable and complex than previously considered. Most of the new specimens predate the evolution of tusks, Parham said.

"Osodobenus eodon is the most primitive walrus with tusk-like teeth," Parham said. "This new species demonstrates the important role of feeding ecology on the origin and early evolution of tusks."

Biewer explained that his work focused on getting a better understanding of the evolutionary history of the walrus in regards to its teeth.

"The importance of dental evolution is that it shows the variability within and across walrus species. Scientists assumed you could identify certain species just based on the teeth, but we show how even individuals of the same species could have variability in their dental setup," said Biewer, who earned a master's degree in geology in 2019.

"Additionally, everyone assumes that the tusks are the most important teeth in a walrus, but this research further emphasizes how tusks were a later addition to the history of walruses. The majority of walrus species were fish eaters and adapted to catching fish, rather than using suction feeding on mollusks like modern walruses."

Biewer, now a paleontologist in the Modesto area, also examined whether climate changes in the Pacific Ocean had an impact on ancient walruses. His work suggests that a rise in water temperature helped to boost nutrients and planktonic life, and played a role in the proliferation of walruses about 10 million years ago, which may have contributed to their diversity.

Sidebar:

For the fossil walrus research project, geology graduate Jacob Biewer spent hours in the lab measuring and describing the walrus bones.

"I sat many hours with a handy caliper taking notes on the lengths of teeth and width of skulls, among many other measurements," he said. "Describing bones is much more in depth and meticulous than it sounds. There are traits that the bones of each walrus species have -- the size, shape and number of teeth. I recorded how the bones are different from, or similar to, other extinct walrus species."

Biewer, a paleontologist who lives in Modesto, noted that despite the pandemic, he and Parham worked on the scientific paper with 300 miles of social distancing.

Completing his first journal publication, based on his master's work, and conducting the research project helped him to understand scientific methods and techniques that he now uses in his career, where he monitors construction sites for paleontological resources. He also teaches undergraduate geology courses at Cal State Stanislaus, where he earned a bachelor's degree in geology, and is considering pursuing a doctorate.

"The experiences I had in conducting this research, especially the presentations at national paleontological conferences, led to a big increase in my confidence in my scientific abilities," Biewer said. "I credit my time working with Dr. Parham directly to the achievements in my current employment -- from the skills he imparted to the doors he helped open."

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Key patient insights the missing link in understanding COVID-19 and its mutations

UNIVERSITY OF YORK

Research News

A new study led by Australia's national science agency CSIRO, has found 95.5 per cent of current entries in GISAID, the world's largest novel coronavirus genome database, do not contain relevant patient information -- a critical piece of the puzzle to understand the virus and how it is evolving.

The researchers have used this finding to develop a standardised data collection template, which can be implemented on repositories like GISAID, without identifying the patient and making it easier for clinical teams treating patients to share more of their knowledge.

This enables the scientific community to access important information including symptoms, vaccine status and travel history and in doing so build a more complete picture of the impact of COVID-19 on each patient.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is one of the most sequenced viruses in history, with over 200,000 sequences on GISAID as of 16 November 2020.

The last 100,000 sequences of the virus were uploaded in the past two months, a global record.

The study, a collaboration with GISAID and other academic partners, proposes a standardised data collection method to help scientists and clinicians around the world gather and share vital information in the fight against COVID-19.

CSIRO researcher and senior author of the paper Dr S.S. Vasan, who is also Honorary Professor at the University of York, UK, said it is critical to collect the 'patient journey' in as much detail as possible to understand the impact of virus evolution on the disease and its consequences.

"We urgently need de-identified patient data associated with these virus genome sequences in order to decipher whether disease outcomes are due to a mutation, or multiple mutations, in the virus or host factors such as age, gender and co-morbidities," Dr Vasan said.

"It's very likely this information is known to the clinical teams who treated the patient but does not make its way to public repositories such as GISAID, due to the number of steps involved."

Recognising this need for clinical data, GISAID made 'patient status' a compulsory field for uploading virus sequences since 27 April 2020.

However, the study showed a lack of digital infrastructure for collecting clinical information has hampered progress.

It also identified the need for a standardised vocabulary and mechanism for linking in with health systems as key factors for capturing the necessary information.

Lead author and CSIRO researcher Dr Denis Bauer, who is also Honorary Associate Professor at Macquarie University, Sydney, said with the adoption of the study's proposed data collection template, future sequences shared through the GISAID initiative could contain more meaningful de-identified patient information.

"We have identified steps in the clinical health data acquisition cycle and workflows that likely have the biggest impact in the data-driven understanding of this virus," Dr Bauer said.

"Following the 'Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resource' implementation guide, we have introduced an ontology-based standard questionnaire consistent with the World Health Organization's recommendations."

Barwon Health's Director of Infectious Diseases Professor Eugene Athan welcomed the new data collection template.

"Barwon Health is leading a study on the long-term biological, physiological and psychological effects of COVID-19, in partnership with CSIRO and Deakin University, and we intend to implement this mechanism for our data collection and reporting," Prof Athan said.

"Having a simplified and standardised approach to sharing relevant patient information alongside genome sequences will enable critical research into COVID-19 and comparisons between different studies and population sets.

"I encourage clinicians and scientists around the world to share, wherever possible, de-identified patient information and clinical outcomes using this template to support ongoing research efforts."

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The paper 'Interoperable medical data: the missing link for understanding COVID?19' was published in the Transboundary and Emerging Diseases journal.

Surrey reveals simple method to produce high performing Lithium Selenium batteries

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

Research News

 

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are considered the best hope for next-generation battery technology, thanks to their long-life cycle, high specific power and energy density. However, they have not met the ever-increasing demands of emerging technologies such as electric vehicles. Li-Se battery technology is increasingly considered a real alternative to LIBs because of its high theoretical volume capacity and much higher conductivity.

In the first study of its kind, published by the Nature Communications journal, engineers from Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), in collaboration with the team at University Technology of Sydney detail how they used a single-atom catalyst to create highly effective cathodes for Li-Se batteries. They demonstrate that their batteries have a superior rate capability and outstanding long-term cycling performance.

The Surrey team used to delicately control Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework (ZIF) particles that were placed on the surface of polystyrene spheres. The core-shell of the ZIF was then converted into a hollow structured carbon material.

Through further fine-tuning, the team from the ATI successfully produced atomic cobalt electrocatalyst, nitrogen-doped hollow porous carbon, nitrogen-doped hollow porous carbon and cobalt nanoparticles. By embedding selenium in hollow structured carbon particles, carbon/selenium composites were produced.

The atomic cobalt electrocatalysts were used as cathode materials for Li-Se batteries and clearly showed superior electrochemical performance including a superior rate capability (311?mA?h?g?1 at 50?C) and excellent cycling stability (267?mA?h?g?1 after 5000 cycles with a 0.0067% capacity decay per cycle at a current density of 50?C) with the Coulombic efficiency of ~100%.

Dr Jian Liu, one of the lead authors and Reader (Associate Professor) of Energy Materials at the ATI, said:

"We truly believe that our atomic cobalt-doped synthesized material can pave the way for Lithium Selenium batteries to be the go-to battery technology for future generations. While our results are incredibly encouraging, there is still some way to go to make our dream of high-capacity, sustainable battery technology a reality."

Professor Ravi Silva, Director of the ATI at the University of Surrey, said:

"We are incredibly proud of the highly creative and excellent work that Dr Liu's team has produced - a piece of research that may be a defining moment for sustainable battery technology development."

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Better than money? In-kind payments incentivize farmers to conserve agrobiodiversity

An innovative payment scheme for ecosystem services successfully encouraged farmers to cultivate and conserve agrobiodiversity, according to a new study of eight years of implementation in Latin America

INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TROPICAL AGRICULTURE (CIAT)

Research News

IMAGE: FARMERS' REWARDS INCLUDED MATTRESSES, FARM SUPPLIES, AND OTHER USEFUL ITEMS. view more 

CREDIT: A.DRUCKER

What if you received a new mattress in exchange for planting diverse crops? It may sound unusual, but tangible non-monetary incentives - anything from fertilizer to furniture - may hold significant potential in encouraging farmers to conserve their local agrobiodiversity, which includes a suite of increasingly rare crops and varieties that are often found nowhere else in the world.

"It turns out that a good conservation farmer is a well-rested conservation farmer," said Adam Drucker, a researcher at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.

Drucker and co-author Marleni Ramirez recently assessed eight years of programs that use incentives and competitive tenders in which farmers receive in-kind payments in exchange for cultivating threatened varieties of important crops such as quinoa and maize.

In their article published in Land Use Policy, Drucker and Ramirez analyzed payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services, or PACS, in four Latin American countries between 2010-2018.

Their conclusion: these schemes are very affordable, attractive to farmers and policymakers, and can successfully conserve crop diversity on farms. The programs have been very well-received in Peru, a megadiverse Andean nation with world-famous cuisine and a long tradition of innovation in cultivation.

Award ceremonies for PACS programs are regularly attended by ministers and other high-level officials, and attract media attention. Due to the success of the programs, PACS are also a part of government policy to conserve biodiversity in the country.

The right incentives

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is not a new concept. With over 550 PES programs active worldwide, the model offers incentives for beneficiaries to voluntarily commit to sustainably manage land and natural resources. However, high-priority ecosystem services such as water provision have generally eclipsed biodiversity protection.

The article tracks some of the first applications of PES to agrobiodiversity conservation, with schemes encouraging farmers to conserve 130 varieties of crops (including a colorful diversity of quinoa, amaranth, beans, maize and others) in Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala and Ecuador.

Ramirez explained that PES "really fills a gap" by investing in rural communities and holding them collectively responsible. Rather than hand cash to individuals, the process of tenders arranges in-kind payments to groups who bid for conservation contracts.

The farmers obtain the necessary seeds and are subject to monitoring visits to provide extension support and verify successful cultivation, after which they receive their award in a handover ceremony. Farmers keep what they grow, minus a small amount of seed that is returned to the project for distribution to other farmers during the following planting season. "This is a fair and just way to work with communities for participation, equality and social justice," said Ramirez.

Because the programs use awards that are requested by communities, they create conditions to incentivize extremely high compliance. Monitoring in Peru suggests that five years after intervention and without further incentives during the interim, between 30-50% of participating farmers still maintained the threatened varieties that had been re-introduced. Some 83% of farmers declared willingness to participate in future schemes, even without rewards.

CAPTION

Peruvian farmers celebrate successful cultivation of traditional crops, such as the diverse quinoa on display.

Seed-saving policy

The researchers emphasize that accessing the seeds, which are threatened and rare, is a persistent challenge. While many farmers were willing to participate simply in exchange for seeds, building up a depleted genetic resource base often means years of work.

An important aspect of the PACS model is the prioritization of threatened crop varieties based not only on their diversity value but also their value to farmers for food security, nutrition, climate change adaptation and cultural uses. In what is becoming a common theme in global biodiversity conservation conversation, "We can't protect everything, so we need to decide how to conserve the most that we can," said Drucker.

Following successful small-scale piloting with an indigenous people's NGO (UNORCAC), Ecuador has also considered a plan and consulted with the authors. Work with another indigenous people's NGO in Guatemala (ASOCUCH) has shown the important role community seed bank institutions can play in facilitating seed access and exchange.

Drucker is confident that the schemes have potential in other countries. Ethiopia, Madagascar and Zambia have all explored PACS at some level. "PACS provide an opportunity for a whole range of institutions including different levels of governments, universities, scientists, national and international NGOs and farmer organizations to partner in implementation," he said.

Beyond Latin America, Ethiopia and Madagascar are exploring possibilities to apply PACS in protected area buffer zones; and Zambia has looked into its use in the conservation of the wild relatives of crops. At the broader level, the model may be able to lay further groundwork for setting global conservation goals, additional monitoring, market development, and school meal programs.

Drucker and Ramirez conclude that, besides being cost-effective and socially equitable, the PACS platform has shown that many farmers are more than willing to cultivate and conserve threatened crops, and the material reward is only an extra bonus.

"This study reveals that farmers are willing to cultivate traditional and endangered varieties even in absence of any reward. They just want the seeds - and once they have them, they keep sowing them," said Carlo Fadda, who leads the Alliance's research area on biodiversity for food and agriculture. "Compared to the $570 billion a year that governments spend to support farmers - mostly at an industrial scale - the investment in PACS is comparatively small and offers a huge return on investment in terms of conservation and livelihoods. I hope Peru's approach is adopted in many more countries."

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Funders: CGIAR Research Programs on Roots, Tubers and Bananas; Policies, Institutions and Markets; and Water, Land and Ecosystems, Peru (Ministry of Environment, Regional Governments of Cusco and Puno, CIRNMA), Ecuador (UNORCAC), Guatemala (ASOCUCH and Universidad del Valle de Guatemala) and Bolivia (PROINPA).