129 research outputs found
A Constraint-Solving Approach for Achieving Minimal-Reset Transition Coverage of Smartcard Behaviour
Smartcards are security critical devices requiring a high assurance verification approach. Although formal techniques can be used at design or even at development stages, such systems have to undergo a traditional hardware-in-the-loop testing phase. This phase is subject to two key requirements: achieving exhaustive transition coverage of the behavior of the system under test, and minimizing the testing time. In this context, testing time is highly bound to a specific hardware reset operation. Model-based testing is the adequate approach given the availability of a precise model of the system behavior and its ability to produce high quality coverage while optimizing some cost criterion. %l'argument n'est pas convainquant.This paper presents an original algorithm addressing this problem by reformulating it as an integer programming problem to make a graph Eulerian. The associated cost criterion captures both the number of resets and the total length of the test suite, as an auxiliary objective. The algorithm ensures transition coverage. An implementation of the algorithm was developed, benchmarked, and integrated into an industrial smartcard testing framework. A validation case study from this domain is also presented. The approach can of course be applied to any other domains with similar reset-related testing constraints
La Moutte dâAllemagne-en-Provence
Cet ouvrage expose les apports de la fouille dâun petit castrum de haute Provence occupĂ© durant quelques dĂ©cennies autour de lâan Mil. Deux incendies successifs ont contribuĂ© Ă la conservation de macrorestes qui ont livrĂ© de nombreux dĂ©tails sur la vie quotidienne et les pratiques alimentaires en produits vĂ©gĂ©taux, en viandes et mĂȘme en poissons. Le dernier incendie a provoquĂ© lâeffondrement dâune construction dans laquelle tout le mobilier domestique mais aussi des armes ont Ă©tĂ© retrouvĂ©s en place. Le niveau de vie des habitants prĂ©sente les caractĂ©ristiques dâune Ă©lite tant par le mobilier que par lâorganisation des bĂątiments. Les constructeurs ont utilisĂ© des matĂ©riaux locaux assez frustes qui ont nĂ©cessitĂ© des mises en oeuvre tout a fait originales. Les deux Ă©tats successifs qui ont Ă©tĂ© mis au jour autour de lâan Mil montrent des changements radicaux suivis Ă chaque fois dâun ensevelissement mettant en jeu des volumes considĂ©rables. Cette pratique nâest pas unique, tout au moins au niveau local, et des hypothĂšses commencent Ă Ă©merger pour en expliquer les motifs. Ces transformations complĂštes des premiĂšres formes castrales avaient dĂ©jĂ Ă©tĂ© Ă©tudiĂ©es sur un autre site provençal, la Roca de Niozelles, et sont Ă nouveau observĂ©es sur le castrum Archanzoscum qui est en cours de fouille sur la mĂȘme commune dâAllemagne-en-Provence. Ces dĂ©couvertes, de prime abord insolites, montrent que la construction de ces chĂąteaux se faisait sans modĂšle prĂ©dĂ©fini et que chacun des titulaires cherchait dâabord a sâinstaller sur un site dominant topographiquement un terroir pour le constituer en territoire. Câest pour insister sur cette diversitĂ© des formes quâest Ă©galement exposĂ© le site dĂ©fensif tout a fait original du « Champ du Seigneur », Ă Gaubert, prĂ©s de Digne
Alpha synuclein determines ferroptosis sensitivity in dopaminergic neurons via modulation of ether-phospholipid membrane composition.
There is a continued unmet need for treatments that can slow Parkinson's disease progression due to the lack of understanding behind the molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration. Since its discovery, ferroptosis has been implicated in several diseases and represents a therapeutic target in Parkinson's disease. Here, we use two highly relevant human dopaminergic neuronal models to show that endogenous levels of α-synuclein can determine the sensitivity of dopaminergic neurons to ferroptosis. We show that reducing α-synuclein expression in dopaminergic neurons leads to ferroptosis evasion, while elevated α-synuclein expression in patients' small-molecule-derived neuronal precursor cells with SNCA triplication causes an increased vulnerability to lipid peroxidation and ferroptosis. Lipid profiling reveals that ferroptosis resistance is due to a reduction in ether-linked phospholipids, required for ferroptosis, in neurons depleted of α-synuclein (α-syn). These results provide a molecular mechanism linking α-syn levels to the sensitivity of dopaminergic neurons to ferroptosis, suggesting potential therapeutic relevance
Guidance for the risk assessment of the presence at low level of genetically modified plant material in imported food and feed under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003
This document provides guidance for the risk assessment under Regulation (EC) No1829/2003 of the unintended, adventitious or technically unavoidable presence in food and feed of low level of genetically modified plant material intended for markets other than in the European Union. In this context, the presence at low level is defined to be maximum 0.9% of genetically modified plant material per ingredient. This guidance is intended to assist applicants by indicating which scientific requirements of AnnexII of Regulation (EU) No503/2013 are considered necessary for the risk assessment of the presence at low levels of genetically modified plant material in food and feed. (C) 2017 European Food Safety Authority. EFSA Journal published by John Wiley and Sons Ltd on behalf of European Food Safety Authority
High prevalence of PRPH2 in autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa in France and characterization of biochemical and clinical features.
International audiencePURPOSE:To assess the prevalence of PRPH2 in autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP), to report six novel mutations, to characterize the biochemical features of a recurrent novel mutation and to study the clinical features of adRP patients.DESIGN:Retrospective clinical and molecular genetic study.METHODS:Clinical investigations included visual field testing, fundus examination, high-resolution spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT), fundus autofluorescence imaging and electroretinogram (ERG) recording. PRPH2 was screened by Sanger sequencing in a cohort of 310 French families with adRP. Peripherin-2 protein was produced in yeast and analyzed by Western blot.RESULTS:We identified 15 mutations, including 6 novel and 9 previously reported changes in 32 families, accounting for a prevalence of 10.3% in this adRP population. We showed that a new recurrent p.Leu254Gln mutation leads to protein aggregation, suggesting abnormal folding. The clinical severity of the disease in examined patients was moderate with 78% of the eyes having 1 to 0.5 of visual acuity and 52% of the eyes retaining more than 50% of the visual field. Some patients characteristically showed vitelliform deposits or macular involvement. In some families, pericentral RP or macular dystrophy were found in family members while widespread RP was present in other members of the same families.CONCLUSIONS:The mutations in PRPH2 account for 10.3% of adRP in the French population, which is higher than previously reported (0-8%) This makes PRPH2 the second most frequent adRP gene after RHO in our series. PRPH2 mutations cause highly variable phenotypes and moderate forms of adRP, including mild cases which could be underdiagnosed
Positive and Negative Urgency as a single coherent construct: Evidence from a largeâscale network analysis in clinical and nonâclinical samples
Aims: Negative and positive urgency are emotion-related
impulsivity traits that are
thought to be transdiagnostic factors in psychopathology. However, it has recently
been claimed that these two traits are closely related to each other and that considering
them separately might have limited conceptual and methodological value. The
present study aimed to examine whether positive and negative urgency constructs
constitute separate impulsivity traits.
Methods: In contrast to previous studies that have used latent variable approaches,
this study employed an item-based
network analysis conducted in two different samples:
a large sample of non-clinical
participants (N = 18,568) and a sample of clinical
participants with psychiatric disorders (N = 385).
Results: The network analysis demonstrated that items denoting both positive and
negative urgency cohere as a single cluster of items termed âgeneral urgencyâ in both
clinical and non-clinical
samples, thereby suggesting that differentiating positive and
negative urgency as separate constructs is not necessary.
Conclusion: These findings have important implications for the conceptualization
and assessment of urgency and, more broadly, for future research on impulsivity,
personality, and psychopathology
Scoring Protein Relationships in Functional Interaction Networks Predicted from Sequence Data
The abundance of diverse biological data from various sources constitutes a rich source of knowledge, which has the power to advance our understanding of organisms. This requires computational methods in order to integrate and exploit these data effectively and elucidate local and genome wide functional connections between protein pairs, thus enabling functional inferences for uncharacterized proteins. These biological data are primarily in the form of sequences, which determine functions, although functional properties of a protein can often be predicted from just the domains it contains. Thus, protein sequences and domains can be used to predict protein pair-wise functional relationships, and thus contribute to the function prediction process of uncharacterized proteins in order to ensure that knowledge is gained from sequencing efforts. In this work, we introduce information-theoretic based approaches to score protein-protein functional interaction pairs predicted from protein sequence similarity and conserved protein signature matches. The proposed schemes are effective for data-driven scoring of connections between protein pairs. We applied these schemes to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteome to produce a homology-based functional network of the organism with a high confidence and coverage. We use the network for predicting functions of uncharacterised proteins
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