Bar-Ilan University

About: Bar-Ilan University is a education organization based out in Ramat Gan, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 12835 authors who have published 34964 publications receiving 995648 citations. The organization is also known as: Bar Ilan University & BIU.

Bio-behavioral Synchrony: A Model for Integrating Biological and Microsocial Behavioral Processes in the Study of Parenting

Abstract: SYNOPSIS A behavior-based neurobiological approach to the study of normative and high-risk parenting is presented and suggests that human affiliations are formed on the basis of bio-behavioral synchrony between the online physiological and behavioral processes of attachment partners. Theoretical foundations for the model ranging from neuroscience to phenomenology are discussed, and the unique expressions of micro-level synchrony are detailed across development. Specific disruptions to parameters of synchrony in various high-risk conditions and examples for time-locked processes of biology and behavior are described. Finally, implications of the findings to the implementation of specific interventions to mothers, fathers, and families are highlighted.

Security against covert adversaries: efficient protocols for realistic adversaries

Abstract: In the setting of secure multiparty computation, a set of mutually distrustful parties wish to securely compute some joint function of their private inputs. The computation should be carried out in a secure way, meaning that no coalition of corrupted parties should be able to learn more than specified or somehow cause the result to be "incorrect". Typically, corrupted parties are either assumed to be semi-honest (meaning that they follow the protocol specification) or malicious (meaning that they may deviate arbitrarily from the protocol). However, in many settings, the assumption regarding semi-honest behavior does not suffice and security in the presence of malicious adversaries is excessive and expensive to achieve. In this paper, we introduce the notion of covert adversaries, which we believe faithfully models the adversarial behavior in many commercial, political, and social settings. Covert adversaries have the property that they may deviate arbitrarily from the protocol specification in an attempt to cheat, but do not wish to be "caught" doing so. We provide a definition of security for covert adversaries and show that it is possible to obtain highly efficient protocols that are secure against such adversaries. We stress that in our definition, we quantify over all (possibly malicious) adversaries and do not assume that the adversary behaves in any particular way. Rather, we guarantee that if an adversary deviates from the protocol in a way that would enable it to "cheat", then the honest parties are guaranteed to detect this cheating with good probability. We argue that this level of security is sufficient in many settings.

Posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth among Israeli ex-POWs.

Abstract: In this article, the authors present a prospective study that dealt with pathological (posttraumatic stress disorder; PTSD) and salutary (posttraumatic growth; PTG) outcomes of captivity and the correlates of those outcomes among a sample of ex-prisoners of war (POWs) and a control group of combat veterans. Posttraumatic stress disorder and its correlates were assessed in 1991 and 2003, and PTG was assessed in 2003. The results indicate that ex-POWs exhibited higher levels of PTSD and PTG than did the controls. In addition, both linear and quadratic associations between PTSD and PTG were found. The authors discuss some unresolved issues related to assessment of PTG and salutary outcomes, and outline directions for future research.