Search Results (56)

Cross-organization cyber defense must reconcile collaborative learning with privacy and adversarial robustness, yet standard federated learning ships full gradient tensors, leaking sensitive posture and inviting Byzantine manipulation. We present FedMARL-LTI, a federated multi-agent reinforcement learning framework whose architecture answers both pressures with a single decision: each organization’s threat intelligence is shared only as a differentially private 768-dimensional semantic embedding, never as raw data. In the evaluated system, a Weight-DP-protected model-weight delta is also exchanged through the federated aggregator (the semantic abstraction embedding is a parallel channel); the privacy guarantee below is stated for the semantic abstraction channel, and an embeddings-only architecture—which the guarantee enables—is the design this points toward. The contribution is fourfold. (1) Semantic Abstraction (SA) channel: per organization, each round, the local gradient is summarized by an LLM, projected to a 768-dim embedding, L2-clipped, and Gaussian-noised before any numeric quantity leaves the host. The bottleneck reduces the aggregate noise magnitude—the expected L2 norm of the DP noise vector—from $O\left(\sqrt{d_{\mathrm{model}}}\right)$ to $O\left(\sqrt{m}\right)$ with $m=768\ll d_{\mathrm{model}}\approx 3\times {10}^5$. (2) Formal privacy analysis: the SA + DP cascade satisfies $(\epsilon ,\delta )$-DP and bounds per-round mutual information leakage by $\min \{T_{\mathrm{tok}}{\log }_{2}V,m/2{\log }_2(1+C^2/\left(m{\sigma }^2\right)\left)\right\}$, with Rényi composition over $T$ federation rounds. Scope of the guarantee: this bound certifies (i) the semantic-abstraction channel. It does not by itself cover (ii) the weight-aggregation channel, whose Weight-DP protection is analyzed separately, nor (iii) the whole deployed system, which is the composition of the two. We therefore state the ≈1.4-bit/MI bound as a per-round guarantee on information leaving the organization through the SA channel not over every byte the system emits; an embeddings-only configuration—which this bound enables—closes the gap to a whole-system guarantee. (3) Byzantine-resilient ClippedClustering aggregator combining L2 clipping with cosine-similarity clustering. (4) Hierarchical MARL policy with threat-profile-aware LLM-IRR reward shaping, wired end-to-end and disclosed honestly (the evaluated system uses a deterministic Johnson–Lindenstrauss projection in place of the LLM call for reproducibility; the architecture is thus LLM-compatible rather than dependent on a specific model, and a full LLM deployment is the planned extension). We evaluate on CybORG CAGE-4 with $n=5$ organizations, 30 federation rounds × 5 episodes × 100 steps per round. Releasing the SA channel in parallel shows no statistically detectable reward cost at N = 5 vs. the no-privacy baseline; this is measured at reward-shaping coefficient β = 0, so it establishes that the private semantic release does not disturb weight-channel training rather than that semantic sharing improves defense: SA-only $\Delta$reward = $+4.58$ ($t=+1.37$, NS), dual SA + Weight-DP $\Delta$reward = $+4.31$ ($t=+1.30$, NS), all $N=5$ seeds, all $\left|t\right|<1.4$. A controlled signal/noise probe confirms a $19.58\times$ improvement of SA over Weight-DP at a fixed DP budget—matching the predicted $\sqrt{d/m}\approx 19.8$. Under Byzantine sign_flip at 30% ($N=15$), ClippedClustering is directionally strongest ($F_1=0.025$ vs. FedAvg $0.020$, Krum $0.016$) but the edge is not statistically significant (CC vs. Krum $t=+1.59$, $p=0.15$, $d=+0.58$; the earlier $N=5$ “$3.4\times$” gap was small-sample optimism); its Byzantine behavior is on the harsher random_noise attack. Under a corrected implementation, the undefended baselines do not diverge or collapse; the earlier reading (Krum $0.002$, ClippedClustering $0.020$) was a noise-injection artifact and is withdrawn; ClippedClustering is now directionally best on F1 but not significantly, and trails Krum on reward (superseded Cohen’s $d=+3.77$). The cooperative-PPO family (MAPPO, IPPO) outperforms value/actor-critic (QMIX, MADDPG) by $\approx 20$ reward units, $p<0.001$. All host-level $F_1$ values stay below $0.05$ at the 15K-step training horizon used here; the relative claims of the paper (no detectable privacy reward cost, ClippedClustering’s competitive (not decisive) Byzantine behavior on the harsher attacks, cooperative-PPO dominance) are unaffected by this scope. A 200K-step long-horizon replication lifts $F_1$ above the 15K plateau (to $\approx 0.044$, $N=5$)—confirming that horizon, not the privacy/Byzantine machinery, gates absolute accuracy—but a finer 60-checkpoint run shows the climb is volatile and non-monotonic and does not reach deployment-grade, an honest stability-not-compute limitation. FedMARL-LTI is therefore presented as a proof-of-concept for the relative privacy and robustness trade-offs it isolates, not as an operationally deployable cyber defense system. We release all 141 raw run JSON outputs (Phases 1–3, the L4 backend comparison, and the algorithm/aggregator baselines), the figures, and analysis scripts for replication. Full article

Cyber wargaming serves as a core tool for simulating cyber confrontations and supporting operational decision verification. Existing multi-agent methods face issues such as the absence of cross-level mechanisms and poor adaptability to dynamic environments when applied to cyber wargaming. To address these challenges, we innovatively propose HC-MARL, a general hierarchical cascaded multi-agent reinforcement learning architecture tailored for cyber wargaming. Within this architecture, agents are modeled as hierarchical cascaded units to achieve structural decoupling and preserve scalability in both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Specifically, we devise a cross-level bidirectional information passing and intrusion alert sharing mechanism to accommodate cross-level command characteristics; design a Transformer-based message transformation function that fuses variable-length observation vectors from lower-level agents into fixed-length vectors, adapting to dynamic changes in agent structures and numbers; and design a policy function that integrates neural networks with empirical knowledge, incorporating an intrusion-alert-based action mask to enhance threat response efficiency. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed HC-MARL framework is a novel general hierarchical collaborative multi-agent architecture for cyber wargaming. To validate the effectiveness of our framework, we instantiate two-layer and three-layer agent clusters and conduct experiments in the CybORG CC4 environment. The results demonstrate that our architecture can effectively accommodate cross-level information transfer and dynamic changes in agents in cyber wargaming scenarios. Furthermore, incorporating intrusion-alert-based action masking into the policy function significantly improves defensive performance. Compared with the state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods, the average reward improves by approximately 12.3%, and compared with mainstream methods such as Singh et al., the average reward improves by approximately 27.5%. Full article

We elaborate on computational emergence (CE), understood as the emergent acquisition of specific abilities from specific forms of computation, such as artificial neural networks and cascades of rule iterations found in cellular automata. CE leads to the acquisition of properties such as learning abilities, morphological pattern formation, and coherence, and arises from computational mechanisms. We also elaborate on emergent computation (EC), understood as the emergent acquisition of computational abilities by communities of phenomenologically interacting agents, potentially through appropriate interlinkages among them, as in emerging networks. Processes of interaction are understood generically as forms of mutually active interdependence, which can be modeled as self-generated networks. EC arises from phenomenological mechanisms of interaction among agents and leads to the acquisition of properties such as coherent behaviors, resilience, robustness, and collective intelligence. The reason for distinguishing between these two types of emergence is that doing so may open new approaches to modeling collective behavior, especially in artificial ones, such as swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), where introducing parametric and structural changes is more feasible. Combining the two approaches—(a) phenomenological, networked EC arising from populations of interacting (b) in turn computationally emergent agents—allows the consideration of research directions such as identifying relationships between combinations of CE and emergently acquired computational properties within the conceptual frameworks of networked neural networks and intersected neural networks, i.e., networks that share neurons. Such research directions are expected to enable approaches for influencing collective behaviors and complex systems in a non-invasive way, including swarms of UAVs (or drones), autonomous cyborg swarms, and coherent communities of artificial devices equipped with sensors, edge artificial intelligence, and secure communications. We consider the mesoscopic nature of complexity in collective behaviors as a continuous negotiation between these two forms of emergence, with EC playing a macroscopic role and CE a microscopic role. We conclude that this general framework relates to the concept of “The Middle Way” in physics by focusing on what occurs “in between” systems (such as between intersecting neural networks and their dynamic networking) and within transient spaces where non-invasive intervention may be possible and appropriate for guiding, modifying, and inducing changes in complex emergent systems. Full article

Background: While the consumer experience of psychosis has received significant attention in Western research, a substantial gap exists regarding the experiences of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In this context, religious, cultural, familial, and gender-specific factors uniquely shape the experience of psychosis, help-seeking behaviors, and recovery. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of Saudi women with psychosis across three phases: first-episode onset, hospitalization or follow-up, and community living after discharge. Methods: This hermeneutic phenomenological study, guided by van Manen’s methodology, employed all six lifeworld existentials: lived space, lived body, lived time, lived self-other, lived thing, and lived cyborg. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 women diagnosed with psychosis at two hospitals in Riyadh, KSA. Data collection included 13 audio-recorded interviews and eight documented via field notes, supplemented by creative methods such as drawings, poems, and written texts analyzed using van Manen’s vocative method. All Arabic data were professionally translated and verified for accuracy. Results: Three overarching themes emerged. First, women’s lived experiences of first-episode psychosis highlighted the process of understanding causes and developing insight during onset. Second, experiences during admission and follow-up revealed the impact of clinical encounters, nursing care, and the critical need for therapeutic healing spaces. Third, living with psychosis in the community emphasized the complexities of medication adherence, family dynamics, and the pursuit of recovery through education, employment, and religious practice. Conclusions: The participants articulated user-based recovery perspectives, including empowerment, shared decision-making, and hope, which contrasted sharply with the service-based approaches they received. Culturally specific stressors and pervasive stigma shaped every phase of their journey. To the authors’ knowledge, no prior study has examined this population using a hermeneutic phenomenological framework; these findings provide a women-focused, culturally situated evidence base for developing gender-specific recovery models and enhanced discharge planning within the KSA mental health system. Full article

Ocean monitoring is essential for understanding climate change and marine ecosystem dynamics, yet achieving comprehensive global coverage remains a challenge in oceanography. Current technologies face limitations in cost, power, hardware, and depth capacity that restrict widespread monitoring capabilities. Here we show that biohybrid robotic jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) can serve as autonomous vertical ocean profilers by integrating microcontrollers with positively buoyant sensor payloads, achieving controlled vertical-profiling capabilities. Laboratory experiments demonstrated repeatable up–down trajectories, quantified force balance limits, and identified predictable, size-dependent descent swimming speeds. Field deployments in Massachusetts coastal waters and the open ocean off the Florida Keys demonstrated field operation to ocean depths >25 m with successful in situ temperature and depth measurements. To our knowledge, this represents the first biohybrid jellyfish platform to combine autonomous, pressure-triggered vertical profiling with onboard oceanographic sensing in natural marine environments. This approach leverages the global distribution and remarkable swimming efficiency of living jellyfish while eliminating propulsion power requirements by utilizing the animal’s natural swimming capabilities. While further development is required for long-term ocean deployment, this study lays the groundwork for a new class of biohybrid ocean-sensing platforms with advantages in cost, power, and mission flexibility, providing a pathway toward dense sensor networks and increased ocean monitoring observations. Full article

Bio-cybernetic organisms combine biological locomotion with electronic control but face significant challenges regarding individual variability and stimulus habituation. This study introduces an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) designed to dynamically calibrate to individual Gromphadorhina portentosa specimens. Using a miniaturized neural controller, we compared ANFIS’s performance against natural behavior and non-adaptive control methods. Results demonstrate ANFIS’s superiority: obstacle navigation efficiency reached 81% (compared to 42% for non-adaptive methods), and effective behavioral modulation was sustained for 47 min (versus 26 min). Furthermore, the system achieved 73% target acquisition in complex terrain and maintained stimulus responsiveness 3.5-fold longer through sophisticated habituation compensation. Biocompatibility assessments confirmed interface functionality over 14-day periods. This research establishes foundational benchmarks for arthropod bio-cybernetics, demonstrating that adaptive neuro-fuzzy architectures significantly outperform conventional methods, enabling robust bio-hybrid platforms suitable for confined-space search-and-rescue operations. Full article

This article examines Daniel Suarez’s techno-thrillers Daemon (2006) and Freedom™ (2010) as works of speculative fiction that critically engage with themes of posthuman identity, algorithmic governance, and ecological agency. Rather than portraying artificial intelligence as a dystopian threat, the novels imagine the Daemon, which is a self-replicating system launched upon its creator’s death, as an infrastructural force that reorganizes global systems of power, labor, and survival. Through a posthumanist reading, drawing on thinkers such as Donna Haraway, Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, and N. Katherine Hayles, this article interprets the Daemon not as malevolent code, but as an ecological actor embedded in material networks, capable of fostering adaptive forms of life and governance. By reading Suarez’s fiction through the lens of posthuman ecocriticism and infrastructural media theory, the article offers a model for understanding freedom, not as a static right, but as a relational capacity earned through participation in sympoietic systems. It argues that speculative fiction can function as a cartographic tool, mapping not only future technologies but future ontologies. Full article

Jellyfish biohybrid robots have been demonstrated to be successfully programmed to perform vertical sampling profiles of the ocean water column. However, the jellyfish’s endogenous swimming behavior can interfere with the controlled swim cycles, decreasing performance. Further, the model animal used to date, Aurelia aurita, is a relatively slow, weakly swimming species. To enhance the performance of the biohybrid vehicles, we tested whether removing the swimming pacemaker of the jellyfish, the rhopalia, eliminated endogenous movements and enhanced responsiveness of the jellyfish to the swim controller. Further, we tested the responsiveness of two fast-swimming jellyfish species, the rhizostome Cassiopea spp. and the cubomedusae Alatina alata. We found in field trials, where the jellyfish swam controlled vertical profiles in the ocean, that removal of rhopalia eliminated all endogenous behaviors and greatly improved the responsiveness of the jellyfish to the swim controller. This was especially true for species with strong endogenous behaviors that prevented the controller from manipulating swim pulses. Further, we found that both Cassiopea spp. and A. alata were highly responsive to the swim controller and that these faster-swimming jellyfish species greatly increased the speed at which the biohybrid vehicle could traverse vertical profiles in the water column. These enhancements greatly increase the reliability and versatility of jellyfish biohybrid robot vehicles. Full article

This study critically examines the civil–religious influence of Korean conservative Protestantism, which mobilizes heteronormative strategies to oppose anti-discrimination and family rights legislation, through the lens of Christian normativity. These movements justify heteronormative values by appealing to the immutability of the “creation order” in Genesis. Yet such literalist interpretations disregard contemporary findings in evolutionary biology and animal behavior that document same-sex phenomena across species, thereby framing creation and evolution in rigid opposition. Imported from American fundamentalism, “creation science” has further fueled an anti-intellectual public sentiment that naturalizes heterosexuality as divine law. The absolutism of the creation order and special revelation exposes deep theological contradictions when confronted with the existence of diverse sexual and gender identities. In response, this study turns to process theology, which reimagines creation as open-ended, dynamic, and co-creative. Engaging Catherine Keller’s apophatic theology to reopen theological space for sexual minorities, it further develops Justin Sabia-Tanis’s interpretation of transgender transformation as a process of co-evolution, in dialogue with Donna Haraway’s notion of cyborg hybridity. Moreover, drawing on John B. Cobb Jr.’s “persuasive political theology,” it argues that participation in divine co-creation must be expanded into the socio-political sphere. Ultimately, this study seeks to resist anti-intellectualism and advocate for a transformative Christian civil religion in Korea—one oriented toward justice, inclusion, and continual co-creation. Full article

This paper introduces a hybrid learning framework that synergistically combines Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Supervised Learning (SL) to train autonomous cyber-defense agents capable of operating effectively in dynamic and adversarial environments. The proposed approach leverages RL for strategic exploration and policy development, while incorporating SL to distill high-reward trajectories into refined policy updates, enhancing sample efficiency, learning stability, and robustness. The framework first targets specialized agent training, where each agent is optimized against a specific adversarial behavior. Subsequently, it is extended to enable the training of a generalized agent that learns to counter multiple, diverse attack strategies through multi-task and curriculum learning techniques. Comprehensive experiments conducted in the CybORG simulation environment demonstrate that the hybrid RL–SL framework consistently outperforms pure RL baselines across both specialized and generalized settings, achieving higher cumulative rewards. Specifically, hybrid-trained agents achieve up to 23% higher cumulative rewards in specialized defense tasks and approximately 18% improvements in generalized defense scenarios compared to RL-only agents. Moreover, incorporating temporal context into the observation space yields a further 4–6% performance gain in policy robustness. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of augmenting the observation space with historical actions and rewards, revealing consistent, albeit incremental, gains in SL-based learning performance. Key contributions of this work include: $\left(i\right)$ a novel hybrid learning paradigm that integrates RL and SL for effective cyber-defense policy learning, $\left(ii\right)$ a scalable extension for training generalized agents across heterogeneous threat models, and $\left(iii\right)$ empirical analysis on the role of temporal context in agent observability and decision-making. Collectively, the results highlight the promise of hybrid learning strategies for building intelligent, resilient, and adaptable cyber-defense systems in evolving threat landscapes. Full article

This theoretical article explores the contrasting ontologies, axiologies, and political economies of transhumanism and posthumanism. Transhumanism envisions the human as an enhanced, autonomous agent shaped by neoliberal and Enlightenment ideals. Posthumanism challenges this by emphasizing relationality, ecological entanglement, and critiques of commodification. Both engage with technology’s role in reshaping humanity. Drawing on Braidotti’s posthumanism, Haraway’s cyborg figuration, Ahmed’s politics of emotion, Berlant’s cruel optimism, Massumi’s affective modulation, Seigworth and Gregg’s affective intensities, Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism, Fisher’s capitalist realism, Cooper’s surplus life, Sadowski’s digital capitalism, Lupton’s quantified self, Schafheitle et al.’s datafied subject, Pasquale’s black box society, Terranova’s network culture, Bratton’s platform sovereignty, Dean’s communicative capitalism, and Morozov’s technological solutionism, the article elucidates how subjectivity, data, and infrastructure are reorganized by corporate systems. Introducing technogensis as the co-creation of human and technological subjectivities, it links corporate-platform practices to future trajectories governed by Apple, Meta, and Google. These branded technologies function not only as enhancements but as infrastructures of governance that commodify subjectivity, regulate affect and behavior, and reproduce socio-economic stratification. A future is extrapolated where humans are not liberated by technology but incubated, intubated, and ventilated by techno-conglomerate governments. These attention-monopolizing, affective-capturing, behavior-modulating, and profit-extracting platforms do more than enhance; they brand subjectivity, rendering existence subscription-based under the guise of personal optimization and freedom. This reframes transhumanism as a cybernetic intensification of liberal subjectivity, offering tools to interrogate governance, equity, agency, and democratic participation, and resist techno-utopian narratives. Building on this, a posthumanist alternative emphasizes relational, multispecies subjectivities, collective agency, and ecological accountability, outlining pathways for ethical design and participatory governance to resist neoliberal commodification and foster emergent, open-ended techno-social futures. Full article

Cyborg insects offer a biologically powered solution for locomotion control, but conventional methods typically rely on invasive electrical stimulation. Here, we introduce a noninvasive, phototaxis-based strategy to steer walking Endebius florensis beetles using light-emitting diode (LED) stimuli. Electroretinogram recordings revealed spectral sensitivity to blue, green, and yellow light, with reduced response to red. Behavioral assays demonstrated robust positive phototaxis to blue light and negative phototaxis to yellow. Using these findings, we built a wireless microcontroller-based backpack emitting directional blue light to induce steering. The beetles reliably turned toward the activated light, achieving angular deflections over 60° within seconds. This approach enables repeatable, trauma-free insect control and establishes a new paradigm for biohybrid locomotion systems. Full article

So far, synthetic biology approaches for the construction of artificial microorganisms have fostered the transformation of acceptor cells with genomes from donor cells. However, this strategy seems to be limited to closely related bacterial species only, due to the need for a “fit” between donor and acceptor proteomes and structures. “Fitting” of cellular regulation of metabolite fluxes and turnover between donor and acceptor cells, i.e. cybernetic heredity, may be even more difficult to achieve. The bacterial transformation experiment design 1.0, as introduced by Frederick Griffith almost one century ago, may support integration of DNA, macromolecular, topological, cybernetic and cellular heredity: (i) attenuation of donor Pneumococci of (S) serotype fosters release of DNA, and hypothetically of non-DNA structures compatible with subsequent transfer to and transformation of acceptor Pneumococci from (R) to (S) serotype; (ii) use of intact donor cells rather than of subcellular or purified fractions may guarantee maximal diversity of the structural and cybernetic matter and information transferred; (iii) “Blending” or mixing and fusion of donor and acceptor Pneumococci may occur under accompanying transfer of metabolites and regulatory circuits. A Griffith transformation experiment design 2.0 is suggested, which may enable efficient exchange of DNA as well as non-DNA structural and cybernetic matter and information, leading to unicellular hybrid microorganisms with large morphological/metabolic phenotypic differences and major features compared to predeceding cells. The prerequisites of horizontal gene and somatic cell nuclear transfer, the molecular mechanism of transformation, the machineries for the biogenesis of bacterial cytoskeleton, micelle-like complexes and membrane landscapes are briefly reviewed on the basis of underlying conceptions, ranging from Darwin’s “gemmules” to “stirps”, cytoplasmic and “plasmon” inheritance, “rhizene agency”, “communicology”, “transdisciplinary membranology” to up to Kirschner’s “facilitated variation”. Full article

Seeking to examine cases of sacrificial love for another that is empathetic, unconditional, and morally redemptive, I focus on writer Jeff Lemire’s and artist Dustin Nguyen’s heralded comic series, Descender and Ascender (published by Image Comics starting in 2015 and 2018, respectively). In the first main subsection, I argue how illustrative fictional cases (some involving robots) can mirror inter-human ethical struggles in our own world and examine what I call the “The R2-D2 and Wall-E Syndrome”. Next, I look at some representative theoretical, literary, and biblical examples of sacrifice, especially regarding morally problematic theories about Jesus’ death on the cross, a classic Western example of sacrificial love. I then provide a brief context for why I chose Descender and Ascender and highlight some of the main themes and characters in the comics. In doing so, I draw from three main examples: the cyborg and mother Effie (Queen Between), the companion robot TIM-21, and the robot Driller (“a real killer”), where I gleam key traits of sacrificial love as empathetic, unconditional, and morally redemptive. I close with how to distinguish unholy and holy forms of sacrificial love and reflect on how the examples of sacrificial love in the comics ultimately complement my reading of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross while adding some stipulations to his oft-quoted saying: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Full article

This article analyzes the French fairy tale “La Belle et la Bête” (“Beauty and the Beast”), the German folk tale “Das singende springende Löweneckerchen” (“The Singing Springing Lark”), and the Spanish folk tale “El lagarto de las siete camisas” (“The Lizard with the Seven Shirts”) from the vantage point of feminist fairy tale studies and posthumanism. In particular, the article discusses the ways in which the female protagonists and their enchanted, beastly husbands become-with-each-other. The relationships between the female protagonists and their husbands are here taken as indicative of a recognition of the necessary, but often complex and disharmonic, allyship between the human and the nonhuman. The tales showcase different degrees of feminist potential and different ways of acknowledging such transcorporeal interrelations. Moreover, while they arguably transmit patriarchal and aristocratic lessons, their potential for challenging anthropocentric thinking emerges in an affirmative reading. Hence, this article seeks to demonstrate the eco-activist potential of the Western fairy tale tradition. Full article