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Regulation and functionality of species-specific alternative splicing has remained enigmatic to the present date. Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIβ (CaMKIIβ) is expressed in several splice variants and plays a key role in learning and memory. Here, we identify and characterize several primate-specificCAMK2Bsplice isoforms, which show altered kinetic properties and changes in substrate specificity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that primate-specificCAMK2Balternative splicing is achieved through branch point weakening during evolution. We show that reducing branch point and splice site strengths during evolution globally renders constitutive exons alternative, thus providing novel mechanistic insight intocis-directed species-specific alternative splicing regulation. Using CRISPR/Cas9, we introduce a weaker, human branch point sequence into the mouse genome, resulting in strongly alteredCamk2bsplicing in the brains of mutant mice. We observe a strong impairment of long-term potentiation in CA3-CA1 synapses of mutant mice, thus connecting branch point–controlledCAMK2Balternative splicing with a fundamental function in learning and memory.

Regulation and functionality of species-specific alternative splicing has remained enigmatic to the present date. Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIβ (CaMKIIβ) is expressed in several splice variants and plays a key role in learning and memory. Here, we identify and characterize several primate-specific CAMK2B splice isoforms, which show altered kinetic properties and changes in substrate specificity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that primate-specific Camk2β alternative splicing is achieved through branch point weakening during evolution. We show that reducing branch point and splice site strengths during evolution globally renders constitutive exons alternative, thus providing a paradigm for cis-directed species-specific alternative splicing regulation. Using CRISPR/Cas9 we introduced a weaker human branch point into the mouse genome, resulting in human-like CAMK2B splicing in the brain of mutant mice. We observe a strong impairment of long-term potentiation in CA3-CA1 synapses of mutant mice, thus connecting branch point-controlled, species-specific alternative splicing with a fundamental function in learning and memory.

We analyze the effects of CSR disclosure on the accuracy of analysts’ share price targets. The accuracy of analysts’ price targets is value-relevant as it reduces firms’ capital costs. We assess this relationship for S&P 500 firms from 2009 to 2014, applying panel regressions. We find that the accuracy of analysts’ share price targets – measured as analysts’ forecast errors – worsen if firms disclose more information on CSR performance – measured using Bloomberg’s ESG disclosure score. This effect is further reinforced for firms in so-called “dirty” industries. We also find that the accuracy of analysts’ price targets increases if firms publish a separate CSR report and show good CSR performance. Based on our findings and prior literature, we argue that (1) analysts have difficulties processing additionally disclosed information on CSR, as this information is not sufficiently standardized for analysts to derive the correct impact on the firm’s future value as well as share price target, and that (2) a firm’s management may arbitrarily report on CSR performance to increase the firm’s value. We see further regulations on non-financial reporting similar to those on financial reporting as essential to change these situations.

The security gateway between an attacker and a user's private data is the Cloud Control Interface (CCI): If an attacker manages to get access to this interface, he controls the data. Several high-level data breaches originate here, the latest being the business failure of the British company Code Spaces. In such situations, using a private cloud is often claimed to be more secure than using a public cloud. In this paper, we show that this security assumption may not be justified: We attack private clouds through their rich, HTML5-based control interfaces, using well-known attacks on web interfaces (XSS, CSRF, and Clickjacking) combined with novel exploitation techniques for Infrastructure as a Service clouds.We analyzed four open-source projects for private IaaS cloud deployment (Eucalyptus, OpenNebula, OpenStack, and openQRM) in default configuration. We were able to compromise the security of three cloud installations (Eucalyptus, OpenNebula, and openQRM) One of our attacks (OpenNebula) allowed us to gain root access to VMs even if full perimeter security is enabled, i.e. if the cloud control interface is only reachable from a certain segment of the company's network, and if all network traffic is filtered through a firewall.We informed all projects about the attack vectors and proposed mitigations. As a general recommendation, we propose to make web management interfaces for private clouds inaccessible from the Internet, and to include this technical requirement in the definition of a private cloud.