Performance evaluation of Attribute-Based Encryption on constrained IoT devices

The Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling a new generation of innovative services based on the seamless integration of smart objects into information systems. This raises new security and privacy challenges that require novel cryptographic methods. Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) is a type of public-key encryption that enforces a fine-grained access control on encrypted data based on flexible access policies. The feasibility of ABE adoption in fully-fledged computing systems, i.e., smartphones or embedded systems, has been demonstrated in recent works. In this paper, we consider IoT devices characterized by strong limitations in terms of computing, storage, and power. Specifically, we assess the performance of ABE in typical IoT constrained devices. We evaluate the performance of three representative ABE schemes configured considering the worst-case scenario on two popular IoT platforms, namely ESP32 and RE-Mote. Our results show that, if we assume to employ up to 10 attributes in ciphertexts and to leverage hardware cryptographic acceleration, then ABE can indeed be adopted on devices with very limited memory and computing power, while obtaining a satisfactory battery lifetime. In our experiments, as also performed in other works in the literature, we consider only the worst-case configuration, which, however, might not be completely representative of the real working conditions of sensors employing ABE. For this reason, we complete our evaluation by proposing a novel benchmark method that we used to complement the experiments by evaluating the average performance. We show that by always considering the worst case, the current literature significantly overestimates the processing time and the energy consumption

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Drives Expansion of Low-Density Neutrophils Equipped With Regulatory Activities

In human tuberculosis (TB) neutrophils represent the most commonly infected phagocyte but their role in protection and pathology is highly contradictory. Moreover, a subset of low-density neutrophils (LDNs) has been identified in TB, but their functions remain unclear. Here, we have analyzed total neutrophils and their low-density and normal-density (NDNs) subsets in patients with active TB disease, in terms of frequency, phenotype, functional features, and gene expression signature. Full-blood counts from Healthy Donors (H.D.), Latent TB infected, active TB, and cured TB patients were performed. Frequency, phenotype, burst activity, and suppressor T cell activity of the two different subsets were assessed by flow cytometry while NETosis and phagocytosis were evaluated by confocal microscopy. Expression analysis was performed by using the semi-quantitative RT-PCR array technology. Elevated numbers of total neutrophils and a high neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio distinguished patients with active TB from all the other groups. PBMCs of patients with active TB disease contained elevated percentages of LDNs compared with those of H.D., with an increased expression of CD66b, CD33, CD15, and CD16 compared to NDNs. Transcriptomic analysis of LDNs and NDNs purified from the peripheral blood of TB patients identified 12 genes differentially expressed: CCL5, CCR5, CD4, IL10, LYZ, and STAT4 were upregulated, while CXCL8, IFNAR1, NFKB1A, STAT1, TICAM1, and TNF were downregulated in LDNs, as compared to NDNs. Differently than NDNs, LDNs failed to phagocyte live Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) bacilli, to make oxidative burst and NETosis, but caused significant suppression of antigen-specific and polyclonal T cell proliferation which was partially mediated by IL-10. These insights add a little dowel of knowledge in understanding the pathogenesis of human TB

Study of a high spatial resolution 10B-based thermal neutron detector for application in neutron reflectometry: the Multi-Blade prototype

Although for large area detectors it is crucial to find an alternative to detect thermal neutrons because of the 3He shortage, this is not the case for small area detectors. Neutron scattering science is still growing its instruments' power and the neutron flux a detector must tolerate is increasing. For small area detectors the main effort is to expand the detectors' performances. At Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) we developed the Multi-Blade detector which wants to increase the spatial resolution of 3He-based detectors for high flux applications. We developed a high spatial resolution prototype suitable for neutron reflectometry instruments. It exploits solid 10B-films employed in a proportional gas chamber. Two prototypes have been constructed at ILL and the results obtained on our monochromatic test beam line are presented here

Immune response to tick-borne hemoparasites: Host adaptive immune response mechanisms as potential targets for therapies and vaccines

Tick-transmitted pathogens cause infectious diseases in both humans and animals. Different types of adaptive immune mechanisms could be induced in hosts by these microorganisms, triggered either directly by pathogen antigens or indirectly through soluble factors, such as cytokines and/or chemokines, secreted by host cells as response. Adaptive immunity effectors, such as antibody secretion and cytotoxic and/or T helper cell responses, are mainly involved in the late and long-lasting protective immune response. Proteins and/or epitopes derived from pathogens and tick vectors have been isolated and characterized for the immune response induced in different hosts. This review was focused on the interactions between tick-borne pathogenic hemoparasites and different host effector mechanisms of T-and/or B cell-mediated adaptive immunity, describing the efforts to define immunodominant proteins or epitopes for vaccine development and/or immunotherapeutic purposes. A better understanding of these mechanisms of host immunity could lead to the assessment of possible new immunotherapies for these pathogens as well as to the prediction of possible new candidate vaccine antigens

Human CD4 T-cells with a naive phenotype produce multiple cytokines during Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and correlate with active disease

T-cell-mediated immune responses play a fundamental role in controlling Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) infection, and traditionally, this response is thought to be mediated by Th1-type CD4+ T-cells secreting IFN-γ. While studying the function and specificity of M. tuberculosis-reactive CD4+ T-cells in more detail at the single cell level; however, we found a human CD4+ T-cell population with a naive phenotype that interestingly was capable of producing multiple cytokines (TCNP cells). CD4+ TCNP cells phenotyped as CD95lo CD28int CD49dhi CXCR3hi and showed a broad distribution of T cell receptor Vβ segments. They rapidly secreted multiple cytokines in response to different M. tuberculosis antigens, their frequency was increased during active disease, but was comparable to latent tuberculosis infection in treated TB patients. These results identify a novel human CD4+ T-cell subset involved in the human immune response to mycobacteria, which is present in active TB patients' blood. These results significantly expand our understanding of the immune response in infectious diseases

Persistence of antibody responses to the sars-cov-2 in dialysis patients and renal transplant recipients recovered from covid-19

Nephropathic subjects with impaired immune responses show dramatically high infection rates of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This work evaluated the ability to acquire and maintain protective antibodies over time in 26 hemodialysis patients and 21 kidney transplant recipients. The subjects were followed-up through quantitative determination of circulating SARS-CoV-2 S1/S2 IgG and neutralizing antibodies in the 6-month period after clinical and laboratory recovery. A group of 143 healthcare workers with no underlying chronic pathologies or renal diseases recovered from COVID was also evaluated. In both dialysis and transplanted patients, antibody titers reached a zenith around the 3rd month, and then a decline occurred on average between the 270th and 300th day. Immunocompromised patients who lost antibodies around the 6th month were more common than non-renal subjects, although the difference was not significant (38.5% vs. 26.6%). Considering the decay of antibody levels below the positivity threshold (15 AU/mL) as “failure”, a progressive loss of immunisation was found in the overall population starting 6 months after recovery. A longer overall antibody persistence was observed in severe forms of COVID-19 (p = 0.0183), but within each group, given the small number of patients, the difference was not significant (dialysis: p = 0.0702; transplant: p = 0.1899). These data suggest that immunocompromised renal patients recovered from COVID-19 have weakened and heterogeneous humoral responses that tend to decay over time. Despite interindividual variability, an association emerged between antibody persistence and clinical severity, similar to the subjects with preserved immune function

Early Light Chains Removal and Albumin Levels with a Double Filter-Based Extracorporeal Treatment for Acute Myeloma Kidney

Renal impairment in Multiple Myeloma (MM) represents one of the most important factors that influences patient survival. In fact, before the introduction of modern chemotherapy, less than 25% of patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) and MM who required dialysis recovered sufficient renal function to become independent from dialysis, with a median overall survival of less than 1 year. There are many other factors involved in determining patient survival. In this study we aimed to investigate the role of double filter-based extracorporeal treatment for removal of serum free light chains (sFLC) in acute myeloma kidney (AKI for MM) and to evaluate patient overall survival. All patients received Bortezomib-based chemotherapy and extracorporeal treatment for sFLC removal. For each session 2 dialyzers of the same kind were used. The dialytic dose was not related to the degree of renal function but to the removal of sFLC. The factors that have been found to be significantly associated with lower mortality were reduction of sFLC at day 12 and day 30, >50% reduction of sFLC at day 30, number of sessions and independence from dialysis. Among baseline characteristics, albumin level was statistically associated with the patients’ outcome. Our analysis highlights the importance of the early treatment for removal of sFLC in AKI for MM. These results indicate that the early removal of sFLC can improve patient’s outcome

Geometry of River Networks II: Distributions of Component Size and Number

The structure of a river network may be seen as a discrete set of nested sub-networks built out of individual stream segments. These network components are assigned an integral stream order via a hierarchical and discrete ordering method. Exponential relationships, known as Horton's laws, between stream order and ensemble-averaged quantities pertaining to network components are observed. We extend these observations to incorporate fluctuations and all higher moments by developing functional relationships between distributions. The relationships determined are drawn from a combination of theoretical analysis, analysis of real river networks including the Mississippi, Amazon and Nile, and numerical simulations on a model of directed, random networks. Underlying distributions of stream segment lengths are identified as exponential. Combinations of these distributions form single-humped distributions with exponential tails, the sums of which are in turn shown to give power law distributions of stream lengths. Distributions of basin area and stream segment frequency are also addressed. The calculations identify a single length-scale as a measure of size fluctuations in network components. This article is the second in a series of three addressing the geometry of river networks.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables, Revtex4, submitted to PR