3,597 research outputs found
Complicated intra-abdominal infections in a worldwide context: an observational prospective study (CIAOW Study)
Get PDFDespite advances in diagnosis, surgery, and antimicrobial therapy, mortality rates associated with complicated intra-abdominal infections remain exceedingly high. The World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) has designed the CIAOW study in order to describe the clinical, microbiological, and management-related profiles of both community- and healthcare-acquired complicated intra-abdominal infections in a worldwide context. The CIAOW study (Complicated Intra-Abdominal infection Observational Worldwide Study) is a multicenter observational study currently underway in 57 medical institutions worldwide. The study includes patients undergoing surgery or interventional drainage to address complicated intra-abdominal infections. This preliminary report includes all data from almost the first two months of the six-month study period. Patients who met inclusion criteria with either community-acquired or healthcare-associated complicated intra-abdominal infections (IAIs) were included in the study. 702 patients with a mean age of 49.2 years (range 18-98) were enrolled in the study. 272 patients (38.7%) were women and 430 (62.3%) were men. Among these patients, 615 (87.6%) were affected by community-acquired IAIs while the remaining 87 (12.4%) suffered from healthcare-associated infections. Generalized peritonitis was observed in 304 patients (43.3%), whereas localized peritonitis or abscesses was registered in 398 (57.7%) patients.The overall mortality rate was 10.1% (71/702). The final results of the CIAOW Study will be published following the conclusion of the study period in March 2013
Pre-existing type-2 diabetes is not an adverse prognostic factor in patients with renal cell carcinoma: A single-center retrospective study.
No full textOBJECTIVES: Type-2 diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disease affecting several million people all over the world. The correlation between DM and malignancies is well established due to the findings of several large population-based studies. However, for endometrial, breast, colorectal, and liver cancers it has also been reported that DM could exert a negative impact on prognosis, causing a significant reduction in cancer-specific survival. A significant correlation with DM has also been demonstrated in renal cell carcinoma (RCC), but the possible prognostic role of DM in this setting has been poorly investigated and remains controversial. This study provides a retrospective analysis of a single-center surgical series with the aim of assessing the features and prognosis of RCC in DM patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Since 1987 a prospectively compiled database at our institute has collected the data of 1,761 patients who underwent surgery for RCC. All the patients are followed in a specially dedicated out-patient ambulatory. For this study, patients who were taking insulin or oral anti-hyperglycemic drugs before surgery for RCC were considered as DM cases. Their clinical and pathologic features were compared with those of patients without DM. Then, limiting the analysis to non-metastatic patients, the Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate survival functions and univariable and multivariable Cox regression models addressed time to RCC-related and non RCC-related mortality. RESULTS: The data of 1,604 patients without DM and 157 with DM (prevalence 8.9\%) have been analyzed; the latter were more frequently males, older, and with higher co-morbidity and with more asymptomatic, smaller, and low stage neoplasms, though with a higher grading. After a median follow-up time of 53.4 months (IQR 20-97 months), the factors that influenced RCC-related mortality were the presence of symptoms at diagnosis, tumor size, TMN staging, and grading, while those that influenced non-RCC-related mortality were age, gender, and co-morbidities, whereas the presence of DM showed no influence at all. Moreover, in patients without and with DM, progression rate (19.8\% vs. 15.1\%, P = 0.195) and RCC-related mortality rate (9.6\% vs. 5.3\%, P = 0.102) were also statistically equivalent. CONCLUSION: In our experience, the prevalence of DM in RCC patients is close to 10\%. Such a condition does not determine any significant influence on prognosis of RCC
The Role of Platelets in Diabetes Mellitus
No full text“Diabetic platelets” are characterized by dysregulation of several signaling pathways leading to persistent in vivo platelet activation, induced by hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and endothelial dysfunction. Both antihyperglycemic drugs, addressing the upward metabolic abnormalities, and antiplatelet agents, directly targeting the diabetic platelet, have the potential to curb persistent platelet activation in this setting. The pathophysiological evidence of enhanced platelet hyperreactivity/activation in DM, coupled with the epidemiological evidence of suboptimal response to aspirin in this setting, as it emerged in metanalyses of clinical trials, raised the hypothesis of an “interindividual variability” in the response to aspirin. Future efforts to decrease the thrombotic burden in diabetes should target specific disease-based mechanisms, including enhanced platelet turnover. Availability of high-throughput techniques open a novel perspective, with a deeper insight on transcriptomics and posttranscriptional regulation of platelets. Both platelet miRNAs and platelet-derived microparticles might not only reflect but also affect platelet function, and that of other cells, and may represent potentially useful biomarkers of platelet hyperreactivity and antiplatelet drug response
Genetic variation for phenolic acids concentration and composition in a tetraploid wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) collection
Get PDFPhenolic acid intake through the consumption of whole-wheat foods provides important health benefits associated with reduced risks of cardiovascular diseases and colon cancer. The genetic variation for phenolic acids was extensively studied in common wheat, but a comprehensive survey in tetraploid wheat is lacking. In this study we evaluated the genetic variability for individual and total phenolic acids concentration existing in a large collection of tetraploid wheat (Triticum turgidum L.). A 2-year evaluation was undertaken on the whole-meal flour of 111 genotypes belonging to seven T. turgidum subspecies including cultivars, landraces and wild accessions. Durum cultivars [T. turgidum subsp. durum (Desf.) MacKey], had the highest average concentration of total phenolic acids (828.7 μg g−1 dm in 2012; 834.5 μg g−1 dm in 2013) with amounts varying from 550.9 μg g−1 dm to 1701.2 μg g−1 dm, indicating a variation of greater than threefold fold. The lowest concentration of phenolic acids was found in T. turgidum subsp. dicoccum (Schrank ex Schübler) Thell. Rivet wheat (T. turgidum L. subsp. turgidum) had phenolic acid concentrations similar to those in durum, but less variation was noted among the accessions. On the other hand, the accessions of the four remaining subspecies showed lower phenolic acid concentrations and variation among the accessions as compared to durum. A total of six phenolic acids were identified across the wheat genotypes. The effects of genotype, year and year × genotype were estimated by ANOVA and resulted significant for all phenolic acids. The ratio of genotypic variance to total variance suggested the possibility of improving phenolic acid content in elite wheat germplasm through appropriate breeding programs. Moreover, significant correlations between phenolic acids and other quality characteristics of the grain were detected
Entanglement and quantity in quantum space - About quantum measurement (II)
No full textAs a continuation and extension of "quantity in phase space" "quantity in quantum space" is introduced. With that, the disappearing of quantum interference discussed in a previous paper [S. Durr, et al., Nature 395 (1998) 33] is explained in the same spirit as our recent papers [Ren De-Ming, Commun. Theor. Phys. (Beijing, China) 41 (2004) 685, 833].Physics, MultidisciplinarySCI(E)中国科学引文数据库(CSCD)1ARTICLE133-364
Sneutrino DM in the NMSSM with inverse seesaw mechanism
No full textIn supersymmetric theories like the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), the lightest neutralino with bino or singlino as its dominant component is customarily taken as dark matter (DM) candidate. Since light Higgsinos favored by naturalness can strength the couplings of the DM and thus enhance the DM-nucleon scattering rate, the tension between naturalness and DM direct detection results becomes more and more acute with the improved experimental sensitivity. In this work, we extend the NMSSM by inverse seesaw mechanism to generate neutrino mass, and show that in certain parameter space the lightest sneutrino may act as a viable DM candidate, i.e. it can annihilate by multi-channels to get correct relic density and meanwhile satisfy all experimental constraints. The most striking feature of the extension is that the DM-nucleon scattering rate can be naturally below its current experimental bounds regardless of the higgsino mass, and hence it alleviates the tension between naturalness and DM experiments. Other interesting features include that the Higgs phenomenology becomes much richer than that of the original NMSSM due to the relaxed constraints from DM physics and also due to the presence of extra neutrinos, and that the signatures of sparticles at colliders are quite different from those with neutralino as DM candidate.National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) [11575053]SCI(E)ARTICLE1
Classical mechanics and quantum mechanics
No full textThe Newton equation of motion is derived from quantum mechanics.Physics, MultidisciplinarySCI(E)中国科学引文数据库(CSCD)2ARTICLE5685-6884
Policy-driven Data Sharing over Attribute-Based Encryption supporting Dual Membership
No full textAttribute-Based Encryption (ABE) plays an important role in current secure data sharing through fine-grained customizable policies. However, the existing ABE schemes only support simple predicates, = and ≠, but cannot express a more general membership predicates, ∈ and ∉, in policies. The low expressivity of ABE will enlarge the ciphertext storage and reduce the communication efficiency. To overcome this problem, we propose an ABE supporting Dual Membership (DM-ABE). The core problem for implementing this scheme is how to use cryptographic methods to decide the membership between the verified element and the given set. In order to solve this problem, we design a cryptographic algorithm, called Secure Decision of Membership (SDM), based on aggregation functions. In this algorithm, any set can be aggregated into one cryptographic element, and the verified element and the given set can be converted into another cryptographic element in decision process. The membership between them can be decided by the above two cryptographic elements. Furthermore, we construct the DM-ABE by using SDM. Because of the good expressivity of our DM-ABE, we further propose a novel cryptographic data sharing framework by integrating DM-ABE and attribute-based access control to provide fine-grained access control and security protection for private data. In the security proof of DM-ABE, we prove that the DM-ABE satisfies the semantic security against chosen-plaintext attacks under the DBDHE assumption in the standard model through a unified way, considering both two encryption methods for ∈ and ∉ at the same time. Finally, we analyze our scheme in terms of time and space complexity, and compare it with some existing schemes. The results show that our DM-ABE has a better expressive ability on the boolean logic of general membership predicates, ∈ and ∉.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Cyber Securit
VirtualPatch: fixing Android security vulnerabilities with app-level virtualization
Get PDFopenSince its first release, the Android OS has been affected by a significant issue: the existence of multiple customized versions, handled by different mobile device vendors. One of the main consequences of the Android fragmentation issue regards the distribution of security updates to end-user devices. In particular, I have focused on the time required by Google and other mobile vendors to send security updates. I have found that, on average, Google takes more than 84 days to send an update, after its development is already complete, while Samsung takes, on average, over 39 days to integrate a Google security patch in its custom Android OS. During this time window, end-users are left exposed to attackers.
In this thesis, I propose VirtualPatch, a solution aimed at allowing the immediate distribution of Android security patches after their development, thus shrinking the aforementioned time window. VirtualPatch is a virtualization-based approach that protects apps by loading security patches targeting different Android architecture layers and, being executed at the application-layer, it does not require an update of the underlying Android OS. I chose seven Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures from the Android Security Bulletins and managed to successfully implement and deploy the associated security patches through my solution. Moreover, while the state-of-art already proved the runtime overhead introduced by the virtualization technique to be negligible, I measured also the average time required to load the security patches, which I found to be less than 60 milliseconds. Overall, VirtualPatch is an effective and efficient solution addressing the issue of the security patch distribution for Android users. Given the significance of the issue, I really hope to make a contribution to the whole Android community.Since its first release, the Android OS has been affected by a significant issue: the existence of multiple customized versions, handled by different mobile device vendors. One of the main consequences of the Android fragmentation issue regards the distribution of security updates to end-user devices. In particular, I have focused on the time required by Google and other mobile vendors to send security updates. I have found that, on average, Google takes more than 84 days to send an update, after its development is already complete, while Samsung takes, on average, over 39 days to integrate a Google security patch in its custom Android OS. During this time window, end-users are left exposed to attackers.
In this thesis, I propose VirtualPatch, a solution aimed at allowing the immediate distribution of Android security patches after their development, thus shrinking the aforementioned time window. VirtualPatch is a virtualization-based approach that protects apps by loading security patches targeting different Android architecture layers and, being executed at the application-layer, it does not require an update of the underlying Android OS. I chose seven Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures from the Android Security Bulletins and managed to successfully implement and deploy the associated security patches through my solution. Moreover, while the state-of-art already proved the runtime overhead introduced by the virtualization technique to be negligible, I measured also the average time required to load the security patches, which I found to be less than 60 milliseconds. Overall, VirtualPatch is an effective and efficient solution addressing the issue of the security patch distribution for Android users. Given the significance of the issue, I really hope to make a contribution to the whole Android community
Constraining the Inner Galactic DM Density Profile with H.E.S.S.
No full text© 2024 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).In this short review, corresponding to a talk given at the conference “Cosmology 2023 in Miramare”, we combine an analysis of five regions observed by H.E.S.S. in the Galactic Center, intending to constrain the Dark Matter (DM) density profile in a WIMP annihilation scenario. For the analysis, we include the state-of-the-art Galactic diffuse emission Gamma-optimized model computed with DRAGON and a wide range of DM density profiles from cored to cuspy profiles, including different kinds of DM spikes. Our results are able to constrain generalized NFW profiles with an inner slope ≳1.3 . When considering DM spikes, the adiabatic spike is completely ruled out. However, smoother spikes given by the interactions with the bulge stars are compatible if ≲0.8 , with an internal slope of sp-stars=1.5.This work has been supported by the grants PID2021-125331NB-I00, PID2022-139841NB-I00, and CEX2020-001007-S, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, by “ERDF A way of making Europe”, and the MULTIDARK Project RED2022-134411-T. The author’s contribution to this work has been supported by the FPI Severo Ochoa PRE2021-099137 grant.With funding from the Spanish government through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2020-001007-S).Peer reviewe
- …
