The Influence of L-Carnitine on Oxidative Modification of LDL In Vitro

Owing to their structure and function, low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) are particularly susceptible to the oxidative modifications. To prevent against oxidative modification of LDL, L-carnitine, with endogenous small water-soluble quaternary amine possessing antioxidative properties, was used. The aim of this paper was to prove the in vitro influence of L-carnitine on the degree of oxidative modification of the lipid part (estimated by conjugated dienes, lipid hydroperoxides, and malondialdehyde levels) and the protein part (estimated by dityrosine and tryptophan levels) of LDL native and oxidized by cooper ions. The level of lipophylic LDL antioxidant—α-tocopherol was also measured

Secure-MQTT: an efficient fuzzy logic-based approach to detect DoS attack in MQTT protocol for internet of things

Abstract The advancements in the domain of Internet of Things (IoT) accelerated the development of new communication technologies. Machine to machine communication in IoT is accomplished with application protocols such as the Constrained Application Protocol and Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). The openness of these protocols leads to various types of attacks including DoS Attack. MQTT is widely used in secure IoT applications like health monitoring. One of the prominent attacks in IoT is the denial of service (DoS) attack. This enforces the need for an efficient intrusion detection system method in MQTT-based application. In this paper, we address the vulnerabilities in MQTT, through which intruders can control the low-configuration devices in the network. This paper proposes a lightweight fuzzy logic-based intrusion detection scheme called Secure-MQTT, for detecting malicious activity during the communication between IoT devices. The proposed method uses a fuzzy logic-based system to detect the malicious behavior of the node with the help of a fuzzy rule interpolation mechanism. Secure-MQTT avoids the use of a dense rule base by exploiting the fuzzy rule interpolation that generates rules dynamically. The proposed method provides an effective mechanism to protect the low configuration devices from the DoS attack. The simulation results show that the proposed method detects the attacks more accurately when compared to the existing methods

Ekrv: Ensemble of knn and random committee using voting for efficient classification of phishing

Any efficient anti-phishing tool must be able to classify phishing activity as ‘phishing’ with utmost accuracy. The key factor that influences the accuracy of an anti-phishing tool is the selection of a classification algorithm whose prediction accuracy is the maximum with nil or least false-positive rate. This paper proposes the implementation of a hybrid approach involving random committee that is a type of Ensemble classification technique and k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm which is available as IBK (instance-based with k neighbors) on WEKA, resulting in most encouraging prediction accuracy values. The proposed scheme is followed after the preprocessing phase that involves feature extraction using Consistency Subset Eval algorithm with the Greedy Stepwise search technique

A Proposed Minimum Standard Set of Outcome Measures for Cataract Surgery.

IMPORTANCE: Aligning outcome measures for cataract surgery, one of the most frequently performed procedures globally, may facilitate international comparisons that can drive improvements in the outcomes most meaningful to patients. OBJECTIVE: To propose a minimum standard set of outcome measures for cataract surgery that enables global comparisons. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A working group of international experts in cataract outcomes and registries was convened, along with a patient advocate, to agree on a consensus of outcome measures for cataract surgery. In a modified Delphi process, the group met regularly between November 10, 2012, and November 21, 2013, to discuss which outcomes to include in a standard set. Included factors were based on extant literature, existing registries, and the experience of group members. Similarly, a series of consensus discussions were held to determine a set of risk factors to be gathered for each patient. The final shortlist was compiled into a standard set. Analysis was performed from November 22, 2013, to April 5, 2014. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Development of a recommended standard set encompassing preoperative metrics including patient risk factors, intraoperative factors including surgical complications, and postoperative cataract surgery outcomes. RESULTS: The recommended standard set encompasses all patients treated for cataracts by 1 of 4 surgical approaches (phacoemulsification, sutured manual extracapsular cataract extraction, sutureless manual extracapsular cataract extraction, or intracapsular cataract extraction). The recommended metrics to be recorded preoperatively include demographics, ocular history and comorbidities, preoperative visual acuity, and patient-reported visual function. The recommended outcomes were split into intraoperative and postoperative metrics. Intraoperative outcomes include capsule-related problems, dislocation of lens nucleus fragments into the vitreous, and other complications. Postoperative outcomes include visual acuity, refractive error, patient-reported visual function, and early and late complications of surgery. The suggested follow-up for collection of postoperative outcomes is up to 3 months. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: A minimum standard set of outcome measures for cataract surgery is important for meaningful comparison across contexts. The proposed data set is a compromise between all useful data and the practicalities of data collection

Underestimation of Liver Transplantation for Alcoholic Hepatitis in the National Transplant Database.

Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) can be coded in United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) as either alcoholic cirrhosis or alcoholic hepatitis (AH), without having specific criteria to assign either diagnosis. In this multicenter American Consortium of Early Liver Transplantation for Alcoholic Hepatitis (ACCELERATE-AH) study, we sought to assess the concordance of the clinician diagnosis of AH at liver transplantation (LT) listing versus UNOS data entry of AH as listing diagnosis. In a prior study, consecutive early LT recipients transplanted for AH between 2012 and 2017 were identified by chart review at 10 ACCELERATE-AH sites. In this current study, these same LT recipients were identified in the UNOS database. The primary UNOS diagnostic code was evaluated for concordance with the chart-review assignment of AH. In cases where the primary listing diagnosis in UNOS was not AH, we determined the reason for alternate classification. Among 124 ACCELERATE-AH LT recipients with a chart-review diagnosis of AH, only 43/124 (35%) had AH as listing diagnosis in UNOS; 80 (64%) were listed as alcoholic cirrhosis, and 1 (1%) as fulminant hepatic necrosis. Of the 81 patients missing AH as a UNOS listing diagnosis code, the reasons for alternate classification were 44 (54%) due to a lack of awareness of a separate diagnosis code for AH; 13 (16%) due to concomitant clinical diagnosis of AH and alcoholic cirrhosis in the chart; 12 (15%) due to clinical uncertainty regarding the diagnosis of AH versus acute decompensated alcoholic cirrhosis; and 12 (15%) due to a data entry error. In conclusion, in a large cohort of LT recipients with AH, only 35% were documented as such in UNOS. Increased education and awareness for those performing UNOS data entry, the establishment of specific criteria to define AH in the UNOS database, and the ability to document dates of alcohol use would allow future research on ALD to be more informative