Considerations on Deception Techniques Used in Political and Product Marketing

This paper explores three deception techniques which are widely used in political and product marketing. These techniques are ‘deception by omission’, ‘deception by saturation’ and the use of ‘deception by spin’. These techniques are newly analysed in the framework of the four canonical strategies of Information Warfare and Shannon’s capacity and entropy theorems, and their respective strengths and weaknesses established. Specific strategies for the defeat of these deception techniques are discussed

Engineering a Suburban Ad-Hoc Network

Networks are growing in popularity, as wireless communication hardware, both fixed and mobile, becomes more common and affordable. The Monash Suburban Ad-Hoc Network (SAHN) project has devised a system that provides a highly secure and survivable ad-hoc network, capable of delivering broadband speeds to co-operating users within a fixed environment, such as a residential neighbourhood, or a campus. The SAHN can be used by residents within a community to exchange information, to share access to the Internet, providing last-mile access, or for local telephony and video conferencing. SAHN nodes are designed to be self-configuring and selfmanaging, relying on no experienced user intervention. Thus, they are suitable for use by the general public, in ‘plug-and-play’ fashion. This paper investigates possible architectures for an implementation of the SAHN (Tyson 2005), and presents a real-world prototype. The prototype presented takes the form of a Linux kernel module, and a user-space daemon

Not All Children with Cystic Fibrosis Have Abnormal Esophageal Neutralization during Chemical Clearance of Acid Reflux.

PurposeAcid neutralization during chemical clearance is significantly prolonged in children with cystic fibrosis, compared to symptomatic children without cystic fibrosis. The absence of available reference values impeded identification of abnormal findings within individual patients with and without cystic fibrosis. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that significantly more children with cystic fibrosis have acid neutralization durations during chemical clearance that fall outside the physiological range.MethodsPublished reference value for acid neutralization duration during chemical clearance (determined using combined impedance/pH monitoring) was used to assess esophageal acid neutralization efficiency during chemical clearance in 16 children with cystic fibrosis (3 to <18 years) and 16 age-matched children without cystic fibrosis.ResultsDuration of acid neutralization during chemical clearance exceeded the upper end of the physiological range in 9 of 16 (56.3%) children with and in 3 of 16 (18.8%) children without cystic fibrosis (p=0.0412). The likelihood ratio for duration indicated that children with cystic fibrosis are 2.1-times more likely to have abnormal acid neutralization during chemical clearance, and children with abnormal acid neutralization during chemical clearance are 1.5-times more likely to have cystic fibrosis.ConclusionSignificantly more (but not all) children with cystic fibrosis have abnormally prolonged esophageal clearance of acid. Children with cystic fibrosis are more likely to have abnormal acid neutralization during chemical clearance. Additional studies involving larger sample sizes are needed to address the importance of genotype, esophageal motility, composition and volume of saliva, and gastric acidity on acid neutralization efficiency in cystic fibrosis children

Gastroesophageal reflux in cystic fibrosis across the age spectrum.

Background:Scientific advances have improved longevity in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients and many of these patients can expect to experience age-related gastrointestinal co-morbidities. We aimed to assess the extent to which age might impact gastroesophageal reflux (GER) in patients with CF. Methods:Our esophageal pH-multichannel intraluminal impedance monitoring database was searched for tracings belonging to CF patients ≥2 years old without prior fundoplication and not taking anti-reflux medications immediately prior (within 7 days) and during the study. Tracings were retrospectively analyzed; Impedance and pH variables were evaluated with respect to age and pulmonary function. Results:Twenty-eight patients were enrolled; 16 children (3.1-17.7 years) and 12 adults (18.2-48.9 years). Among pH probe parameters, correlation analysis showed DeMeester score (P=0.011) and number of acid reflux events lasting >5 minutes (P=0.047) to be significantly correlated with age. Age was not significantly correlated with any of the impedance parameters. Age was negatively correlated with baseline impedance (BI) in the distal esophagus (r=-0.424, P=0.023) and BI was negatively correlated with several pH parameters, including reflux index (r=-0.553, P=0.002), number of total acid reflux events (r=-0.576, P=0.001), number of acid reflux events lasting >5 minutes (r=-0.534, P=0.003), and DeMeester score (r=-0.510, P=0.006). Pulmonary function (percent predicted forced expiratory volume in one minute; ppFEV1) was negatively correlated with age (r=-0.494, P=0.0007). The interaction of age and ppFEV1 and any of the reflux parameters, however, was not significant (P>0.05); the strongest evidence for an interaction was found for the number of acid reflux events reaching the proximal esophagus, but this interaction still did not reach statistical significance (P=0.070). Conclusions:In a small cohort, we found evidence that age may be associated with increased acid exposure and that both age and increased acid exposure are associated with reduced BI in the distal esophagus. The negative relationship between pulmonary function and age in our cohort is not related to GER. This pilot study supports the need for esophageal assessment and treatment of GER as standard components of clinical care for an aging CF population

Predicting lethal courses in critically ill COVID-19 patients using a machine learning model trained on patients with non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia

In a pandemic with a novel disease, disease-specific prognosis models are available only with a delay. To bridge the critical early phase, models built for similar diseases might be applied. To test the accuracy of such a knowledge transfer, we investigated how precise lethal courses in critically ill COVID-19 patients can be predicted by a model trained on critically ill non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia patients. We trained gradient boosted decision tree models on 718 (245 deceased) non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia patients to predict individual ICU mortality and applied it to 1054 (369 deceased) COVID-19 patients. Our model showed a significantly better predictive performance (AUROC 0.86 [95% CI 0.86-0.87]) than the clinical scores APACHE2 (0.63 [95% CI 0.61-0.65]), SAPS2 (0.72 [95% CI 0.71-0.74]) and SOFA (0.76 [95% CI 0.75-0.77]), the COVID-19-specific mortality prediction models of Zhou (0.76 [95% CI 0.73-0.78]) and Wang (laboratory: 0.62 [95% CI 0.59-0.65]; clinical: 0.56 [95% CI 0.55-0.58]) and the 4C COVID-19 Mortality score (0.71 [95% CI 0.70-0.72]). We conclude that lethal courses in critically ill COVID-19 patients can be predicted by a machine learning model trained on non-COVID-19 patients. Our results suggest that in a pandemic with a novel disease, prognosis models built for similar diseases can be applied, even when the diseases differ in time courses and in rates of critical and lethal courses

Chlorambucil targets BRCA1/2-deficient tumours and counteracts PARP inhibitor resistance.

Due to compromised homologous recombination (HR) repair, BRCA1- and BRCA2-mutated tumours accumulate DNA damage and genomic rearrangements conducive of tumour progression. To identify drugs that target specifically BRCA2-deficient cells, we screened a chemical library containing compounds in clinical use. The top hit was chlorambucil, a bifunctional alkylating agent used for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). We establish that chlorambucil is specifically toxic to BRCA1/2-deficient cells, including olaparib-resistant and cisplatin-resistant ones, suggesting the potential clinical use of chlorambucil against disease which has become resistant to these drugs. Additionally, chlorambucil eradicates BRCA2-deficient xenografts and inhibits growth of olaparib-resistant patient-derived tumour xenografts (PDTXs). We demonstrate that chlorambucil inflicts replication-associated DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), similarly to cisplatin, and we identify ATR, FANCD2 and the SNM1A nuclease as determinants of sensitivity to both drugs. Importantly, chlorambucil is substantially less toxic to normal cells and tissues in vitro and in vivo relative to cisplatin. Because chlorambucil and cisplatin are equally effective inhibitors of BRCA2-compromised tumours, our results indicate that chlorambucil has a higher therapeutic index than cisplatin in targeting BRCA-deficient tumours.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement No. 722729. Research in M.T. laboratory is supported by Cancer Research UK, Medical Research Council and University of Oxford

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts