Plasticity studies have also revealed that the five senses, once thought to be isolated systems in the brain, may be interchangeable.

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But if kids are kept isolated, their immune systems aren't challenged early in life, and they may not develop normally.

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"We have isolated all our electronic systems from outside access as an early precautionary measure that was taken following a sudden disruption which affected some sectors of our network, " the message reads.

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Rather than having your entire chip be in the same security domain, he says, the most critical things like the management of cryptographic keys or the management of network connections or DRM systems can be isolated in separate transistors on the same chip.

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Despite decades of big investments in ERP and other enterprise systems, companies still remain isolated and unplugged from their larger trading networks.

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Another kind of system, known as DCS, or Distributed Control Systems, is often used in isolated areas such as a chemical plant.

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We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network.

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And as this work so clearly demonstrates, in most cases these are not isolated events, but can be traced to weaknesses in systems and processes.

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TeraGrid, which is already the world's largest open computer, storage and networking system (exceeded only by the U.S. government's weapons-testing labs, which is "closed, " or isolated inside one institution), uses 16 different computer platforms and runs seven different operating systems.

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