A simulation study on the measurement of D0-D0bar mixing parameter y at BES-III

We established a method on measuring the \dzdzb mixing parameter $y$ for BESIII experiment at the BEPCII $e^+e^-$ collider. In this method, the doubly tagged $\psi(3770) \to D^0 \overline{D^0}$ events, with one $D$ decays to CP-eigenstates and the other $D$ decays semileptonically, are used to reconstruct the signals. Since this analysis requires good $e/\pi$ separation, a likelihood approach, which combines the $dE/dx$, time of flight and the electromagnetic shower detectors information, is used for particle identification. We estimate the sensitivity of the measurement of $y$ to be 0.007 based on a $20fb^{-1}$ fully simulated MC sample.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Numerical Simulation of Hot Accretion Flow around Bondi Radius

Previous numerical simulations have shown that strong winds can be produced in the hot accretion flows around black holes. Most of those studies focus only on the region close to the central black hole, therefore it is unclear whether the wind production stops at large radii around Bondi radius. Bu et al. 2016 studied the hot accretion flow around the Bondi radius in the presence of nuclear star gravity. They find that when the nuclear stars gravity is important/comparable to the black hole gravity, winds can not be produced around the Bondi radius. However, for some galaxies, the nuclear stars gravity around Bondi radius may not be strong. In this case, whether winds can be produced around Bondi radius is not clear. We study the hot accretion flow around Bondi radius with and without thermal conduction by performing hydrodynamical simulations. We use the virtual particles trajectory method to study whether winds exist based on the simulation data. Our numerical results show that in the absence of nuclear stars gravity, winds can be produced around Bondi radius, which causes the mass inflow rate decreasing inwards. We confirm the results of Yuan et al. which indicates this is due to the mass loss of gas via wind rather convectional motions.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

B5, a thioredoxin reductase inhibitor, induces apoptosis in human cervical cancer cells by suppressing the thioredoxin system, disrupting mitochondrion-dependent pathways and triggering autophagy

published_or_final_versio

Effects of nebulized ketamine on allergen-induced airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation in actively sensitized Brown-Norway rats

Since airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and allergic inflammatory changes are regarded as the primary manifestations of asthma, the main goals of asthma treatment are to decrease inflammation and maximize bronchodilation. These goals can be achieved with aerosol therapy. Intravenous administration of the anesthetic, ketamine, has been shown to trigger bronchial smooth muscle relaxation. Furthermore, increasing evidence suggests that the anti-inflammatory properties of ketamine may protect against lung injury. However, ketamine inhalation might yield the same or better results at higher airway and lower ketamine plasma concentrations for the treatment of asthma. Here, we studied the effect of ketamine inhalation on bronchial hyperresponsiveness and airway inflammation in a Brown-Norway rat model of ovalbumin(OVA)-induced allergic asthma. Animals were actively sensitized by subcutaneous injection of OVA and challenged by repeated intermittent (thrice weekly) exposure to aerosolized OVA for two weeks. Before challenge, the sensitizened rats received inhalation of aerosol of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) or aerosol of ketamine or injection of ketamine respectivity. Airway reactivity to acetylcholine (Ach) was measured in vivo, and various inflammatory markers, including Th2 cytokines in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), as well as induciable nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and nitric oxide (NO) in lungs were examined. Our results revealed that delivery of aerosolized ketamine using an ultrasonic nebulizer markedly suppressed allergen-mediated airway hyperreactivity, airway inflammation and airway inflammatory cell infiltration into the BALF, and significantly decreased the levels of interleukin-4 (IL-4) in the BALF and expression of iNOS and the concentration of NO in the inflamed airways from OVA-treated rats. These findings collectively indicate that nebulized ketamine attenuated many of the central components of inflammatory changes and AHR in OVA-provoked experimental asthma, potentially providing a new therapeutic approach against asthma

Dual-energy computed tomography iodine uptake in differential diagnosis of inflammatory and malignant pulmonary nodules

PURPOSEThe aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of iodine uptake parameters using dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) in discriminating inflammatory nodules from malignant tumors.METHODSThis retrospective study included 116 solid pulmonary nodules from 112 patients who were admitted to our hospital between January and September 2018. All nodules were confirmed by surgery or puncture. The degree of enhancement of a single-section region of interest was evaluated. After total tumor volume-of-interest segmentation, the mean iodine density of the whole tumor was measured. Meanwhile, iodine uptake parameters, including total iodine uptake volume, total iodine concentration, vital iodine uptake volume, and vital iodine concentration, were calculated, and a predictive model was established. The overall ability to discriminate between inflammatory and malignant nodules was analyzed using an independent samples t-test for normally distributed variables. The diagnostic accuracy and prognostic performance of DECT parameters were evaluated and compared using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and logistic regression analysis. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the prognostic factors and goodness-of-fit of the whole tumor mean iodine and iodine uptake parameters for discriminating malignant nodules.RESULTSThere were 116 non-calcified nodules, including 64 inflammatory nodules and 52 malignant nodules. The degree of enhancement in malignant nodules was significantly lower than that in inflammatory nodules (P=.043). All iodine uptake parameters in malignant nodules were significantly higher than those in inflammatory nodules (P < .001). The area under the receiver operating curve value, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the established model based on iodine uptake parameters were 0.803, 76.72%, 82.69%, and 84.37%, respectively, which exhibited better diagnostic performance than the degree of enhancement on weighted average images with respective values of 0.609, 59.48%, 61.54%, and 59.38%.CONCLUSIONThe iodine uptake parameters of DECT exhibited better diagnostic accuracy in discriminating inflammatory nodules from malignant nodules than the degree of enhancement on weighted average images

Efficient hybrid-encryption-based optimistic Mix-net protocol

An efficient hybrid-encryption-based Mix-net is presented that is much faster than all previous Mix-nets with public verifiability when all mix-servers execute the mixing protocol honestly (the usual case).The improvement by taking an “optimistic” and hash-based approach to verify the correctness of mixing is achieved without requiring complex and costly zero-knowledge proofs.Only two element-wise testing processes with low-cost computations of hash functions are involved to make certain messages are not manipulated by a cheating server.An efficient integration of public-key and symmetric-key operations also speeds up the mixing.As a result,the computational task of each mix-server is almost independent of the number of mix-servers except for some negligible tasks.Anyone can verify the correctness of a result rapidly by computing a few exponentiations.The scheme is robust,too.Those characteristics make it very suitable for large scale electronic voting

CCA-secure verifiable Mix-Net protocol

A CCA-secure verifiable Mix-Net protocol with provable security was proposed.The protocol was based on Wikström’s Mix-Net and improves its security by introducing an improved key generation algorithm and a new method for constructing proof of secret shuffling.Without revealing the correspondence between inputs and outputs,proposed protocol enables everyone to verify the correctness of output plaintexts through checking evidences broadcasted by each server.Thus,it satisfies public verifiability.Any sender can trace and examine the processing procedure of its ciphertext.Thus,proposed protocol satisfies sender verifiability.It is prored to be CCA-secure under the assumption of random oracle.Compared with previous mix-net schemes which are CCA-secure,proposed protocol does not require any trusted center,and incurs fewer interactions between servers which also resulting in a lower computation and communication complexity.Hence,the protocol is an ideal cryptographic tool for constructing secure electronic election protocol