Comparative Analysis of Viperidae Venoms Antibacterial Profile: a Short Communication for Proteomics

Bacterial infections involving multidrug-resistant strains are one of the ten leading causes of death and an important health problem in need for new antibacterial sources and agents. Herein, we tested and compared four snake venoms (Agkistrodon rhodostoma, Bothrops jararaca, B. atrox and Lachesis muta) against 10 Gram-positive and Gram-negative drug-resistant clinical bacteria strains to identify them as new sources of potential antibacterial molecules. Our data revealed that, as efficient as some antibiotics currently on the market (minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) = 1–32 μg mL−1), A. rhodostoma and B. atrox venoms were active against Staphylococcus epidermidis and Enterococcus faecalis (MIC = 4.5 μg mL−1), while B. jararaca inhibited S. aureus growth (MIC = 13 μg ml−1). As genomic and proteomic technologies are improving and developing rapidly, our results suggested that A. rhodostoma, B. atrox and B. jararaca venoms and glands are feasible sources for searching antimicrobial prototypes for future design new antibiotics against drug-resistant clinical bacteria. They also point to an additional perspective to fully identify the pharmacological potential of these venoms by using different techniques

An SFC-enabled approach for processing SSL/TLS encrypted traffic in future enterprise networks

In this paper, we propose an architecture based on NFV and SDN which allows to balance traffic analysis techniques using a Classifier. It steers flows to the appropriate Service Function Chaining (to open traffic or not) according to network requirements (such as, effectiveness, flexibility, scalability, performance, and privacy). The SSL/TLS traffic processing is carried-out by the centerpiece of this work, the SFC-enabled MITM. A Proof-of-Concept was conducted (focusing on our SFC-enabled MITM) which showed that functionalities lost due to encryption (Content Optimization, Caching, Network Anti-virus, and Content Filter) were recovered when processing opened traffic within its Service Function Chains. We also evaluated its impact on performance. The results show that cipher suite overhead plays a role but can be mitigated, the Classifier can alleviate the performance overhead of different traffic analysis techniques, network functions have lower impact to performance, and Service Function Chaining length influences page load time.publishe

Limiting Carleman weights and anisotropic inverse problems

In this article we consider the anisotropic Calderon problem and related inverse problems. The approach is based on limiting Carleman weights, introduced in Kenig-Sjoestrand-Uhlmann (Ann. of Math. 2007) in the Euclidean case. We characterize those Riemannian manifolds which admit limiting Carleman weights, and give a complex geometrical optics construction for a class of such manifolds. This is used to prove uniqueness results for anisotropic inverse problems, via the attenuated geodesic X-ray transform. Earlier results in dimension $n \geq 3$ were restricted to real-analytic metrics.Comment: 58 page

Orchestrating an SFC-enabled SSL/TLS traffic processing architecture using MANO

The heterogeneity of 5G requirements commands more complex network architectures, imposing the need for network orchestration. ETSI NFV MANO is the standard which defines a common framework for vendors and operators to integrate their orchestration efforts. In this paper, we evaluated how an ETSI NFV MANO compliant orchestrator (OSM) fares while orchestrating an SFC-enabled SSL/TLS encrypted traffic processing architecture, which supports both edge and cloud deployments. A quantitative evaluation was carried-out, which assessed the responsiveness and overheads of OSM, as well as the actual functionality of our SSL/TLS processing architecture (with edge computing components). A qualitative evaluation was also carried-out, providing insight into the maturity of the current OSM release, what works well, what requires workarounds, and the actual limitations. A demonstration of the architecture evaluated in this work was accepted as a contribution to the ETSI OSM PoC Framework.publishe

A Dynamic Analysis of Tuberculosis Dissemination to Improve Control and Surveillance

Background: Detailed analysis of the dynamic interactions among biological, environmental, social, and economic factors that favour the spread of certain diseases is extremely useful for designing effective control strategies. Diseases like tuberculosis that kills somebody every 15 seconds in the world, require methods that take into account the disease dynamics to design truly efficient control and surveillance strategies. The usual and well established statistical approaches provide insights into the cause-effect relationships that favour disease transmission but they only estimate risk areas, spatial or temporal trends. Here we introduce a novel approach that allows figuring out the dynamical behaviour of the disease spreading. This information can subsequently be used to validate mathematical models of the dissemination process from which the underlying mechanisms that are responsible for this spreading could be inferred. Methodology/Principal Findings: The method presented here is based on the analysis of the spread of tuberculosis in a Brazilian endemic city during five consecutive years. The detailed analysis of the spatio-temporal correlation of the yearly geo-referenced data, using different characteristic times of the disease evolution, allowed us to trace the temporal path of the aetiological agent, to locate the sources of infection, and to characterize the dynamics of disease spreading. Consequently, the method also allowed for the identification of socio-economic factors that influence the process. Conclusions/Significance: The information obtained can contribute to more effective budget allocation, drug distribution and recruitment of human skilled resources, as well as guiding the design of vaccination programs. We propose that this novel strategy can also be applied to the evaluation of other diseases as well as other social processes.Instituto do Milenio REDE-TBConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq)Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES)Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP)Fundacao de Amparo a Ciencia e Tecnologia do Estado de Pernambuco (FACEPE)[0012-05.03/04]Fundacao de Amparo a Ciencia e Tecnologia do Estado de Pernambuco (FACEPE)[0203-1.05/08

The BINGO Project IX: Search for Fast Radio Bursts -- A Forecast for the BINGO Interferometry System

The Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations (BINGO) radio telescope will use the neutral Hydrogen emission line to map the Universe in the redshift range $0.127 \le z \le 0.449$, with the main goal of probing BAO. In addition, the instrument optical design and hardware configuration support the search for Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). In this work, we propose the use of a BINGO Interferometry System (BIS) including new auxiliary, smaller, radio telescopes (hereafter \emph{outriggers}). The interferometric approach makes it possible to pinpoint the FRB sources in the sky. We present here the results of several BIS configurations combining BINGO horns with and without mirrors ($4$ m, $5$ m, and $6$ m) and 5, 7, 9, or 10 for single horns. We developed a new {\tt Python} package, the {\tt FRBlip}, which generates synthetic FRB mock catalogs and computes, based on a telescope model, the observed signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) that we used to compute numerically the detection rates of the telescopes and how many interferometry pairs of telescopes (\emph{baselines}) can observe an FRB. FRBs observed by more than one baseline are the ones whose location can be determined. We thus evaluate the performance of BIS regarding FRB localization. We found that BIS will be able to localize 23 FRBs yearly with single horn outriggers in the best configuration (using 10 outriggers of 6 m mirrors), with redshift $z \leq 0.96$; the full localization capability depends on the number and the type of the outriggers. Wider beams are best to pinpoint FRB sources because potential candidates will be observed by more baselines, while narrow beams look deep in redshift. The BIS can be a powerful extension of the regular BINGO telescope, dedicated to observe hundreds of FRBs during Phase 1. Many of them will be well localized with a single horn + 6 m dish as outriggers.(Abridged)Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, submitted to A&