A comparison of the sealing abilities between Biodentine and MTA as root-end filling materials and their effects on bone healing in dogs after periradicular surgery

Objectives: To compare the sealing ability and biocompatibility of Biodentine with mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) when used as root-end filling materials. Methodology: The Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was used to compare the cytotoxicity of MTA and Biodentine. Twenty-one extracted teeth with a single canal were immersed in an acidic silver nitrate solution after root-end filling. Then, the volume and depth of silver nitrate that infiltrated the apical portion of the teeth were analyzed using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). Seventy-two roots from 3 female beagle dogs were randomly distributed into 3 groups and apical surgery was performed. After six months, the volume of the bone defect surrounding these roots was analyzed using micro-CT. Results:Based on the results of the CCK-8 assay, MTA and Biodentine did not show statistically significant differences in cytotoxicity (P>0.05). The volume and the depth of the infiltrated nitrate solution were greater in the MTA group than in the Biodentine group (P<0.05). The volume of the bone defect was larger in the MTA group than in the Biodentine group. However, the difference was not significant (P>0.05). The volumes of the bone defects in the MTA and Biodentine groups were smaller than the group without any filling materials (P<0.05). Conclusions: MTA and Biodentine exhibited comparable cellular biocompatibility. Biodentine showed a superior sealing ability to MTA in root-end filling. Both Biodentine and MTA promoted periradicular bone healing in beagle dog periradicular surgery models

A lightweight identity-based cloud storage auditing supporting proxy update and workload-based payment

Cloud storage auditing allows the users to store their data to the cloud with a guarantee that the data integrity can be efficiently checked. In order to release the user from the burden of generating data signatures, the proxy with a valid warrant is introduced to help the user process data in lightweight cloud storage auditing schemes. However, the proxy might be revoked or the proxy’s warrant might expire. These problems are common and essential in real-world applications, but they are not considered and solved in existing lightweight cloud storage auditing schemes. In this paper, we propose a lightweight identity-based cloud storage auditing scheme supporting proxy update, which not only reduces the user’s computation overhead but also makes the revoked proxy or the expired proxy unable to process data on behalf of the user any more. The signatures generated by the revoked proxy or the expired proxy can still be used to verify data integrity. Furthermore, our scheme also supports workload-based payment for the proxy. The security proof and the performance analysis indicate that our scheme is secure and efficient

Use of Indigenous Hanseniaspora vineae and Metschnikowia pulcherrima Co-fermentation With Saccharomyces cerevisiae to Improve the Aroma Diversity of Vidal Blanc Icewine

Using novel non-Saccharomyces strains is regarded as an effective way to improve the aroma diversity of wines to meet the expectations of consumers. The non-Saccharomyces Hanseniaspora vineae and Metschnikowia pulcherrima have good aromatic properties useful for the production of table wine. However, no detailed information is available on their performances in icewine fermentation. In this study, simultaneous and sequential fermentation trials of indigenous M. pulcherrima CVE-MP20 or H. vineae CVE-HV11 with S. cerevisiae (SC45) were performed in 50-L fermenters of Vidal icewine, respectively. The results showed that SC45 cofermented with different non-Saccharomyces strains could generate a distinct aroma quality of icewine compared with four S. cerevisiae strain monocultures as evidenced by principal component analysis (PCA). Mixed fermentation of MP20/SC45 produced higher contents of acetate esters and β-damascenone with lower C6 alcohols relative to SC45 monoculture. Interestingly, HV11/SC45 generated the highest amounts of C6 alcohols [(Z)-3-hexen-1-ol and (E)-3-hexen-1-ol], higher alcohols (isobutanol, isopentanol, and 2-phenylethanol), acetate esters (2-phenethyl acetate and isoamyl acetate), cis-rose oxide, β-damascenone, and phenylacetaldehyde. Compared with simultaneous inoculation, sequential inoculation could achieve higher aroma diversity and produce higher intensity of fruity, flowery, and sweet attributes of icewine as assessed by calculating the odor activity values (OAVs). Our results verified the desired enological characteristics of H. vineae strain in icewine fermentation and also demonstrated that using indigenous non-Saccharomyces and Saccharomyces strains is a feasible way to improve aroma diversity of icewine products, which could provide an alternative way to meet the requirement of wine consumers for diversified aromatic quality

Explanation-aware Soft Ensemble Empowers Large Language Model In-context Learning

Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable capabilities in various natural language understanding tasks. With only a few demonstration examples, these LLMs can quickly adapt to target tasks without expensive gradient updates. Common strategies to boost such 'in-context' learning ability are to ensemble multiple model decoded results and require the model to generate an explanation along with the prediction. However, these models often treat different class predictions equally and neglect the potential discrepancy between the explanations and predictions. To fully unleash the power of explanations, we propose EASE, an Explanation-Aware Soft Ensemble framework to empower in-context learning with LLMs. We design two techniques, explanation-guided ensemble, and soft probability aggregation, to mitigate the effect of unreliable explanations and improve the consistency between explanations and final predictions. Experiments on seven natural language understanding tasks and four varying-size LLMs demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework

Detail-recovery Image Deraining via Dual Sample-augmented Contrastive Learning

The intricacy of rainy image contents often leads cutting-edge deraining models to image degradation including remnant rain, wrongly-removed details, and distorted appearance. Such degradation is further exacerbated when applying the models trained on synthetic data to real-world rainy images. We observe two types of domain gaps between synthetic and real-world rainy images: one exists in rain streak patterns; the other is the pixel-level appearance of rain-free images. To bridge the two domain gaps, we propose a semi-supervised detail-recovery image deraining network (Semi-DRDNet) with dual sample-augmented contrastive learning. Semi-DRDNet consists of three sub-networks:i) for removing rain streaks without remnants, we present a squeeze-and-excitation based rain residual network; ii) for encouraging the lost details to return, we construct a structure detail context aggregation based detail repair network; to our knowledge, this is the first time; and iii) for building efficient contrastive constraints for both rain streaks and clean backgrounds, we exploit a novel dual sample-augmented contrastive regularization network.Semi-DRDNet operates smoothly on both synthetic and real-world rainy data in terms of deraining robustness and detail accuracy. Comparisons on four datasets including our established Real200 show clear improvements of Semi-DRDNet over fifteen state-of-the-art methods. Code and dataset are available at https://github.com/syy-whu/DRD-Net.Comment: 17 page

Are prominent medullary veins better than prominent cortical veins as predictors of early clinical outcome in patients with acute ischemic stroke?

PURPOSEThe prominent vessel sign (PVS) on susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) can be dichotomized into prominent cortical veins (PCV) and prominent medullary veins (PMV). This study was designed to compare the predictive value of PCV and PMV in the evaluation of the severity of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) in patients within the reperfusion window.METHODSForty-seven consecutive patients with AIS within the middle cerebral artery territory were recruited. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed within 8 hours of symptom onset and at 7 days after stroke onset. Infarct volume was measured, and the early clinical outcome at 7 days was assessed using the modified Rankin Scale. PVS was dichotomized into cases with both PCV and PMV and cases with only PCV according to location.RESULTSPatients with both PCV and PMV (n=32) had higher admission National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores (p = 0.020), larger infarct volumes at baseline (p = 0.026) and 7 days (p = 0.007), and larger infarct growth at 7 days (p = 0.050) than those with PCV only. Multivariate regression analysis showed that both the time of onset at baseline (p = 0.013) and infarct growth at 7 days (p = 0.014) could independently predict poor early clinical outcome.CONCLUSIONPMV may predict poor early clinical outcome in AIS patients, and reperfusion therapy may, therefore, be required more urgently in patients with PMV

Process of diagnosis and treatment of chronic cough in children at primary hospitals

ObjectiveThis study aimed to establish a process for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic cough in children suitable at primary hospitals and improve the treatment efficacy rate and improve health economic indicators.MethodsChildren who visited the Department of Pediatrics, Affiliated Zhou Pu Hospital of the Shanghai Health Medical College from January to December 2021 were randomly assigned to the intervention group (n = 206), in which the diagnosis and treatment process proposed here was applied, and a control group (n = 211) that did not follow the intervention pathway and followed a pathway with the doctors usual practice based on his/her previous experience. Patients were followed up and data were collected at weeks 0 (time of enrollment), 2, 4, 8, and 12 to evaluate the efficacy rate and clinical value.Results(1) No significant differences were detected between the two groups in baseline characteristics, including gender, age, duration of cough (weeks), history of allergy in children and parents, and smoking of family members living in the same household (p > 0.05); (2) During the follow-up, all cough symptom scores of the intervention group were lower than the control group. Additionally, at week 12, the treatment efficacy rate of the intervention group (91.70%) was significantly higher than the control group (69.20%) (p < 0.05); (3) The quality of life of children in both groups at week 12 was improved compared to the first visit. However, the total score of the intervention group was significantly higher than the control group (p < 0.05); (4) At week 12, the referral rate was significantly lower in the intervention group (11.17%) than in the control group (21.33%); (5) The intervention group was better than the control group for the mean monthly medication costs, number of days on errors in childhood, and number of days mistakenly worked by family members at week 12 (p < 0.05).ConclusionThe current process of diagnosis and treatment of chronic cough in children at primary hospitals can improve the effective diagnosis and treatment rate, the quality of life, and other parameters, with good effectiveness and feasibility

Data integrity auditing without private key storage for secure cloud storage

Using cloud storage services, users can store their data in the cloud to avoid the expenditure of local data storage and maintenance. To ensure the integrity of the data stored in the cloud, many data integrity auditing schemes have been proposed. In most, if not all, of the existing schemes, a user needs to employ his private key to generate the data authenticators for realizing the data integrity auditing. Thus, the user has to possess a hardware token (e.g. USB token, smart card) to store his private key and memorize a password to activate this private key. If this hardware token is lost or this password is forgotten, most of the current data integrity auditing schemes would be unable to work. In order to overcome this problem, we propose a new paradigm called data integrity auditing without private key storage and design such a scheme. In this scheme, we use biometric data (e.g. iris scan, fingerprint) as the user's fuzzy private key to avoid using the hardware token. Meanwhile, the scheme can still effectively complete the data integrity auditing.We utilize a linear sketch with coding and error correction processes to confirm the identity of the user. In addition, we design a new signature scheme which not only supports blockless verifiability, but also is compatible with the linear sketch. The security proof and the performance analysis show that our proposed scheme achieves desirable security and efficiency