The Role of Neuropathy Screening Tools in Patients Affected by Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia syndrome (sFM) is one of the most common causes of chronic pain. This study aimed to assess the presence of small and large fiber impairment in fibromyalgic patients by applying validated scores used in the screening for diabetic neuropathy. The endpoints for the study were the assessment of neuropathy prevalence in sFM patients using the NerveCheck Master (NCM), the Michigan Neuropathy Screening Instrument (MNSI), the Diabetic Neuropathy Symptom (DNS) and the Douleur Neuropathique 4 Questions (DN4). The sample was composed of 46 subjects: subjects with sFM (n = 23) and healthy controls (HC) (n = 23). The positivity rates in each group for DN4 were significantly different (p < 0.001), with a prevalence in symptomatic subjects of 56.3% (n = 9) among sFM individuals. A similar difference was also observed with the DNS total score (p < 0.001). NCM and MNSI did not disclose significant differences between the two groups. This finding seems to confirm the data regarding the prevalence of a neuropathic pain in sFM patients

Impact of chronic liver disease upon admission on COVID-19 in-hospital mortality: Findings from COVOCA study

Background Italy has been the first Western country to be heavily affected by the spread of SARS-COV-2 infection and among the pioneers of the clinical management of pandemic. To improve the outcome, identification of patients at the highest risk seems mandatory. Objectives Aim of this study is to identify comorbidities and clinical conditions upon admission associated with in-hospital mortality in several COVID Centers in Campania Region (Italy). Methods COVOCA is a multicentre retrospective observational cohort study, which involved 18 COVID Centers throughout Campania Region, Italy. Data were collected from patients who completed their hospitalization between March-June 2020. The endpoint was in-hospital mortality, assessed either from data at discharge or death certificate, whilst all exposure variables were collected at hospital admission. Results Among 618 COVID-19 hospitalized patients included in the study, 143 in-hospital mortality events were recorded, with a cumulative incidence of about 23%. At multivariable logistic analysis, male sex (OR 2.63, 95%CI 1.42–4.90; p = 0.001), Chronic Liver Disease (OR 5.88, 95%CI 2.39–14.46; p<0.001) and malignancies (OR 2.62, 95%CI 1.21–5.68; p = 0.015) disclosed an independent association with a poor prognosis, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and Respiratory Severity Scale allowed to identify at higher mortality risk. Sensitivity analysis further enhanced these findings. Conclusion Mortality of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 appears strongly affected by both clinical conditions on admission and comorbidities. Originally, we observed a very poor outcome in subjects with a chronic liver disease, alongside with an increase of hepatic damage

Discovering reflected cross-site scripting vulnerabilities using a multiobjective reinforcement learning environment

Tools that automate testing of web applications for Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities perform well when they have a strong knowledge base. Though, they heavily rely on brute force, which is not always an effective choice. On the other hand, expert penetration testers adopt exploit methods that are more accurate, but often not structured. We propose to solve the above mentioned problems, by designing and implementing an intelligent agent, called Suggester, that recommends actions to penetration testers. First, a black-box testing methodology inspired by a penetration tester's behavior, is developed. Such methodology consists of sending a sequence of strings to a web application and observing the responses. Then, an agent is trained to produce attack strings using the framework of a Multiobjective Reinforcement Learning environment (MORL), with a parameterized action space. Each complete attack string is identified as a separate objective to reach. Q-Learning is used to train the agent upon separate, unrelated objectives. Then, the learned actions are suggested to a human-in-the-loop, who performs the actions and collects observations. This allows to orchestrate the agent into pursuing the right objective and selecting the next best action to recommend. The final evaluation proves the scalability of the proposed solution, as well as show an increase in accuracy when compared to other automated scanners

Capturing flags in a dynamically deployed microservices-based heterogeneous environment

Increasing security awareness is a popular defense strategy adopted by companies against cyber attacks. Testbeds that support the so called cybersecurity exercises, strongly rely on virtualization technologies to faithfully reproduce real world scenarios. OS virtualization has proved to be a good solution to improve scalability, but it draws the line on the categories of reproducible vulnerabilities. In this paper, we tackle the challenges arising from the introduction of OS virtualization. We propose a solution that allows to rely as much as possible on the use of containers, as well as integrate them with legacy virtualization approaches when the vulnerabilities to be emulated do not lend themselves to a container-based implementation. We use the Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) paradigm to enable automation of both provisioning and configuration of the emulated scenarios, as well as integrate heterogeneous virtualization technologies. After showing the design and implementation of the proposed solution, we discuss how our approach leverages a cyber range instantiation platform, that can be designed and tested on a single laptop, before being deployed on an enterprise system infrastructure

An automated approach to Web Offensive Security

Web Application Penetration testing is a popular approach that aims at discovering vulnerabilities by emulating real attacks. Experts often use a variety of publicly available attack tools, define attack methodologies and orchestrate them throughout the separate phases of testing. In doing so, they leverage personal experience and intuition, making any automation effort very challenging. In this paper, we propose the design and implementation of a framework for Web Penetration Testing that allows for the integration, as well as orchestration, of several types of attacks. We identify the generic tasks performed during a penetration test. Then, we provide a way to integrate attacks that implement such tasks in a component responsible for executing them. A further component holds the logic that decides which task to execute and aggregates the results of completed tasks. We also define the communication protocol between the two components to enable the orchestration of tasks across all phases of a testing campaign. As a concrete example of the application of the proposed framework, we show how it is possible to integrate several types of attacks, as well as embed an ad hoc defined behavioral model in order to discover cross-site scripting vulnerabilities

Role of Rootstocks on Ion Uptake of Tomato Plants Grown under Saline Conditions

International Symposium on Strategies Towards Sustainability of Protected Cultivation in Mild Winter Climate -- JAN 31, 2009 -- Antalya, TURKEYWOS: 000305334500095The mechanisms that may determine the response of grafted vegetable plants can be manifold. To better understand the scion/rootstock interaction in terms of element uptake a research was carried out; the objectives were to determine the influence of rootstock on shoot growth and nutrient uptake under saline conditions, (Lycopersicon esculentum cv. Durinta). In the experiment two commercial rootstocks ('Beaufort' and 'Heman') were compared with self grafted plants under two salinity levels of nutrient solution (2.8 and 8.8 dS m(-1)) determined by different concentrations of NaCl. To evaluate the effects of rootstock and salt stress, the nutrient and the sodium chloride content in plant tissues were determined. The results confirmed the effects of salt stress on dry matter production and showed that both plant nutrient uptake and sodium and chloride exclusion are affected by rootstock. Although there was a different concentration of ions, the negative effect of salt stress on nutrient uptake and sodium and chlorine accumulation was only in few cases affected by the rootstock