Cyber Black Box: Network intrusion forensics system for collecting and preserving evidence of attack

Once the system is compromised, the forensics and investigation are always executed after the attacks and the loss of some useful instant evidence. Since there is no log information necessary for analyzing an attack cause after the cyber incident occurs, it is difficult to analyze the cause of an intrusion even after an intrusion event is recognized. Moreover, in an advanced cyber incident such as advanced persistent threats, several months or more are expended in only analyzing a cause, and it is difficult to find the cause with conventional security equipment. In this paper, we introduce a network intrusion forensics system for collecting and preserving the evidence of an intrusion, it is called Cyber Black Box that is deployed in Local Area Network environment. It quickly analyzes a cause of an intrusion event when the intrusion event occurs, and provides a function of collecting evidence data of the intrusion event. The paper also describes the experimental results of the network throughput performance by deploying our proposed system in an experimental testbed environment

Sleep state classification using power spectral density and residual neural network with multichannel EEG signals.

This paper proposes a classification framework for automatic sleep stage detection in both male and female human subjects by analyzing the electroencephalogram (EEG) data of polysomnography (PSG) recorded for three regions of the human brain, i.e., the pre-frontal, central, and occipital lobes. Without considering any artifact removal approach, the residual neural network (ResNet) architecture is used to automatically learn the distinctive features of different sleep stages from the power spectral density (PSD) of the raw EEG data. The residual block of the ResNet learns the intrinsic features of different sleep stages from the EEG data while avoiding the vanishing gradient problem. The proposed approach is validated using the sleep dataset of the Dreams database, which comprises of EEG signals for 20 healthy human subjects, 16 female and 4 male. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the ResNet based approach in identifying different sleep stages in both female and male subjects compared to state-of-the-art methods with classification accuracies of 87.8% and 83.7%, respectively

The Fruit Hull of Gleditsia sinensis

Lung cancer has substantial mortality worldwide, and chemotherapy is a routine regimen for the treatment of patients with lung cancer, despite undesirable effects such as drug resistance and chemotoxicity. Here, given a possible antitumor effect of the fruit hull of Gleditsia sinensis (FGS), we tested whether FGS enhances the effectiveness of cis-diammine dichloridoplatinum (II) (CDDP), a chemotherapeutic drug. We found that CDDP, when administered with FGS, significantly decreased the viability and increased the apoptosis and cell cycle arrest of Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) cells, which were associated with the increase of p21 and decreases of cyclin D1 and CDK4. Concordantly, when combined with FGS, CDDP significantly reduced the volume and weight of tumors derived from LLC subcutaneously injected into C57BL/6 mice, with concomitant increases of phosphor-p53 and p21 in tumor tissue. Together, these results show that FGS could enhance the antitumor activity of CDDP, suggesting that FGS can be used as a complementary measure to enhance the efficacy of a chemotherapeutic agent such as CDDP

Efficacy and Tolerability of GCSB-5 for Hand Osteoarthritis: A Randomized, Controlled Trial

AbstractPurposeThe aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy and tolerability of GCSB-5, a mixture of 6 purified herbal extracts, in treating hand osteoarthritis (OA).MethodsA randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 220 patients with hand OA who had baseline a visual analog scale joint pain score of >30 of 100 mm at 3 hospitals between September 2013 and November 2014. After randomization, patients were allocated to receive oral GCSB-5 600 mg or placebo, bid for 12 weeks. The primary end point was the change in the Australian/Canadian OA Hand Index (AUSCAN)-defined pain score at 4 weeks relative to baseline. Secondary end points included the frequency Outcome Measures in Rheumatology–OA Research Society International (OMERACT-OARSI)-defined response at 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks after randomization.FindingsThe allocated treatment was received by 109 and 106 patients in the GCSB-5 and placebo groups, respectively. At 4 weeks, the median (interquartile range) change in AUSCAN pain score relative to baseline was significantly greater in the GCSB-5 group than in the placebo group (–9.0 [–23.8 to –0.4] vs –2.2 [–16.7 to 6.0]; P = 0.014), with sustained improvement at 8, 12, and 16 weeks (P = 0.039). The GCSB-5 group also had a significantly greater OMERACT-OARSI–defined response rate than did the placebo group at 4 weeks (44.0% vs 30.2%), 8 weeks (51.4% vs 35.9%), 12 weeks (56.9% vs 40.6%), and 16 weeks (50.5% vs 37.7%) (P = 0.0074). The 2 treatments exhibited comparable safety profiles.ImplicationsGCSB-5 was associated with improved symptoms of hand OA, with good tolerability, in these patients. GCSB-5 may be a well-tolerated alternative of, or addition to, the treatment of hand OA. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01910116

Graves disease following rabbit antithymocyte globulin treatment of severe aplastic anemia in a Korean child

Antithymocyte globulin (ATG) is used as an immunosuppressive treatment (IST) to deplete clonal suppressor T cells in patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA). The depletion of suppressor T cells by ATG may affect the activation of B cells, which results in an increased risk for autoimmune conditions. A 12-year-old boy was diagnosed with idiopathic SAA. As he did not have an human leukocyte antigen-matched sibling, he was treated with rabbit ATG (3.5 mg/kg/day for 5 days) and cyclosporine. Five months later, he became transfusion independent. However, 23 months after IST, he complained of mild hand tremors, sweating, weight loss, palpitations, and goiter. Results of thyroid function tests revealed hyperthyroidism (free thyroxine, 3.42 ng/dL; thyroid stimulating hormone [TSH], <0.01 nIU/mL; triiodothyronine, 3.99 ng/mL). Results of tests for autoantibodies were positive for the antimicrosome antibody and TSH-binding inhibitory immunoglobulin, but negative for the antithyroglobulin antibody and antinuclear antibody. He was treated with methimazole, and his symptoms improved. The patient has been disease free for 39 months after IST and 9 months after methimazole treatment. This case report suggests that although rare, rabbit ATG may have implications in the pathogenesis of autoimmune hyperthyroidism. Our findings suggest that thyroid function tests should be incorporated in the routine follow-up of SAA patients treated with ATG

Aging impairs vasodilatory responses in rats

BACKGROUND: Aging causes profound changes of stiffness and compliance in the cardiovascular system, which contributes to decreased cardiovascular reserve. Mechanisms of the underlying endothelial vasodilator dysfunction in vasodilator signaling pathways may occur at multiple sites within any of these pathways. METHODS: Age-related changes in the vasculature were investigated in adult young (3-6 months, Y) and old (26-29 month, O) Wistar rats (n = 6). The aortas were carefully dissected from the rat and cut into rings 1.5-2.0 mm in length to measure in vitro isometric tension. Vasorelaxant responses of aortic rings to acetylcholine (ACh), sodium nitroprusside (SNP) and P1075 were examined using Dose Response software (AD Instruments, Mountain View, CA). RESULTS: Endothelium-dependent vasodilator function was impaired. The endothelium of aging rats impaired endothelial NO dependent vasodilation, but the machinery for vasodilation was not impaired. CONCLUSIONS: Age-related NO-mediated vasorelaxation in the aging endothelium was inhibited and appears to be major mechanism of vascular change and impaired vascular regulation.ope

High Shear Stress at the Surface of Enhancing Plaque in the Systolic Phase is Related to the Symptom Presentation of Severe M1 Stenosis

The computational fluid dynamics methods for the limited flow rate and the small dimensions of an intracranial artery stenosis may help demonstrate the stroke mechanism in intracranial atherosclerosis. We have modeled the high wall shear stress (WSS) in a severe M1 stenosis. The high WSS in the systolic phase of the cardiac cycle was well-correlated with a thick fibrous cap atheroma with enhancement, as was determined using high-resolution plaque imaging techniques in a severe stenosis of the middle cerebral artery