3,872 research outputs found
The Bradford & Airedale Health of Men initiative: a study of its effectiveness in engaging with men
The Health of Men (HoM) network received funding from the Big Lottery Fund in 2003 to establish a five year programme of dedicated work with men and boys. This enabled a team of practitioners to be creative and to build upon their existing skills to generate models of working with those men in the community that are usually seen as hard to reach. The research which has accompanied of the work of team has explored why men use these new services and has demonstrated the following: • Men do care about their health • Men are willing and able to engage with their health when services are tailored to their needs • Men from different culture groups and socio-economic backgrounds who are normally seen as hard to reach were accessed. • A model encompassing a dedicated team working with men is worthy of further development Much has been learnt from this project that has great relevance to the local Primary Care Trust (PCT), but has also proved a great source of information for the development of services to men on a Regional, National and International level
Cotreatment with a novel phosphoinositide analogue inhibitor and carmustine enhances chemotherapeutic efficacy by attenuating AKT activity in gliomas
The utility of diagnostic tests in irritable bowel syndrome patients: a systematic review
The aim of this study was to determine the pretest probability of organic GI disease and the accuracy of diagnostic tests for organic GI disease in patients who meet symptom-based criteria for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). METHODS : After a comprehensive literature search for studies examining the accuracy of diagnostic tests for organic GI disease among patients who meet symptom-based criteria for IBS, two independent observers qualitatively assessed the methodology of selected studies and extracted data. Data on the pretest probability of organic GI disease in this population and the accuracy of currently recommended diagnostic tests were converted to descriptive tables. RESULTS : Among patients meeting symptom-based criteria for IBS, the pretest probability of inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, or infectious diarrhea is less than 1%. Currently recommended diagnostic tests rarely identify organic GI disease in patients fulfilling symptom-based criteria for IBS. However, the pretest probability of celiac disease in patients meeting symptom-based criteria for IBS was 10 times higher than the prevalence of celiac disease in the general population. CONCLUSION : There is insufficient evidence to recommend the routine performance of a standardized battery of diagnostic tests in patients who meet symptom-based criteria for IBS. Based upon the increased pretest probability of celiac disease, routine performance of serological tests for celiac disease may be useful in this patient population, though additional study is needed in this area.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72511/1/j.1572-0241.2002.07027.x.pd
HardIDX: Practical and Secure Index with SGX
Software-based approaches for search over encrypted data are still either
challenged by lack of proper, low-leakage encryption or slow performance.
Existing hardware-based approaches do not scale well due to hardware
limitations and software designs that are not specifically tailored to the
hardware architecture, and are rarely well analyzed for their security (e.g.,
the impact of side channels). Additionally, existing hardware-based solutions
often have a large code footprint in the trusted environment susceptible to
software compromises. In this paper we present HardIDX: a hardware-based
approach, leveraging Intel's SGX, for search over encrypted data. It implements
only the security critical core, i.e., the search functionality, in the trusted
environment and resorts to untrusted software for the remainder. HardIDX is
deployable as a highly performant encrypted database index: it is logarithmic
in the size of the index and searches are performed within a few milliseconds
rather than seconds. We formally model and prove the security of our scheme
showing that its leakage is equivalent to the best known searchable encryption
schemes. Our implementation has a very small code and memory footprint yet
still scales to virtually unlimited search index sizes, i.e., size is limited
only by the general - non-secure - hardware resources
Avalanche analysis from multi-electrode ensemble recordings in cat, monkey and human cerebral cortex during wakefulness and sleep
Self-organized critical states are found in many natural systems, from
earthquakes to forest fires, they have also been observed in neural systems,
particularly, in neuronal cultures. However, the presence of critical states in
the awake brain remains controversial. Here, we compared avalanche analyses
performed on different in vivo preparations during wakefulness, slow-wave sleep
and REM sleep, using high-density electrode arrays in cat motor cortex (96
electrodes), monkey motor cortex and premotor cortex and human temporal cortex
(96 electrodes) in epileptic patients. In neuronal avalanches defined from
units (up to 160 single units), the size of avalanches never clearly scaled as
power-law, but rather scaled exponentially or displayed intermediate scaling.
We also analyzed the dynamics of local field potentials (LFPs) and in
particular LFP negative peaks (nLFPs) among the different electrodes (up to 96
sites in temporal cortex or up to 128 sites in adjacent motor and pre-motor
cortices). In this case, the avalanches defined from nLFPs displayed power-law
scaling in double log representations, as reported previously in monkey.
However, avalanche defined as positive LFP (pLFP) peaks, which are less
directly related to neuronal firing, also displayed apparent power-law scaling.
Closer examination of this scaling using more reliable cumulative distribution
functions (CDF) and other rigorous statistical measures, did not confirm
power-law scaling. The same pattern was seen for cats, monkey and human, as
well as for different brain states of wakefulness and sleep. We also tested
other alternative distributions. Multiple exponential fitting yielded optimal
fits of the avalanche dynamics with bi-exponential distributions. Collectively,
these results show no clear evidence for power-law scaling or self-organized
critical states in the awake and sleeping brain of mammals, from cat to man.Comment: In press in: Frontiers in Physiology, 2012, special issue "Critical
Brain Dynamics" (Edited by He BY, Daffertshofer A, Boonstra TW); 33 pages, 13
figures. 3 table
Alzheimer Disease and Oxidative Stress
Research in Alzheimer disease has recently demonstrated compelling evidence on the importance of oxidative processes in its pathogenesis. Cellular changes show that oxidative stress is an event that precedes the appearance of the hallmark pathologies of the disease, neurofibrillary tangles, and senile plaques. While it is still unclear what the initial source of the oxidative stress is in Alzheimer disease, it is likely that the process is highly dependent on redox-active transition metals such as iron and copper. Further investigation into the role that oxidative stress mechanisms seem to play in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease may lead to novel clinical interventions
Keyword-Based Delegable Proofs of Storage
Cloud users (clients) with limited storage capacity at their end can
outsource bulk data to the cloud storage server. A client can later access her
data by downloading the required data files. However, a large fraction of the
data files the client outsources to the server is often archival in nature that
the client uses for backup purposes and accesses less frequently. An untrusted
server can thus delete some of these archival data files in order to save some
space (and allocate the same to other clients) without being detected by the
client (data owner). Proofs of storage enable the client to audit her data
files uploaded to the server in order to ensure the integrity of those files.
In this work, we introduce one type of (selective) proofs of storage that we
call keyword-based delegable proofs of storage, where the client wants to audit
all her data files containing a specific keyword (e.g., "important"). Moreover,
it satisfies the notion of public verifiability where the client can delegate
the auditing task to a third-party auditor who audits the set of files
corresponding to the keyword on behalf of the client. We formally define the
security of a keyword-based delegable proof-of-storage protocol. We construct
such a protocol based on an existing proof-of-storage scheme and analyze the
security of our protocol. We argue that the techniques we use can be applied
atop any existing publicly verifiable proof-of-storage scheme for static data.
Finally, we discuss the efficiency of our construction.Comment: A preliminary version of this work has been published in
International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience
(ISPEC 2018
A New Family of Multistep Methods with Improved Phase Lag Characteristics for the Integration of Orbital Problems
In this work we introduce a new family of ten-step linear multistep methods
for the integration of orbital problems. The new methods are constructed by
adopting a new methodology which improves the phase lag characteristics by
vanishing both the phase lag function and its first derivatives at a specific
frequency. The efficiency of the new family of methods is proved via error
analysis and numerical applications.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
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