120 research outputs found
Comparison of serum apolipoprotein A-I between Chinese multiple sclerosis and other related autoimmune disease
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Serum apolipoprotein (apo) A-I was considered to be an immune regulator and could suppress pro-inflammatory cytokines generated by activated T cell in some autoimmune diseases. However, the change of serum apoA-I levels in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients is unknown.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In the presentation we performed a study on serum apoA-I levels in the patients with MS. We enrolled some age and gender matched patients with MS, autoimmune demyelinating diseases (Guillain-Barre Syndrome and Clinically Isolated Syndrome), neuroinflammatory diseases (viral encephalitis), autoimmune connective diseases (rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus) and healthy control groups, and tested their serum lipids levels: total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoproteins (HDL), apolipoproteinB100 (apoB100), apolipoproteinA-I (apoA-I).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For all patients, age had no effect on serum apoA-I levels (<it>P </it>> 0.05). Meanwhile, we proved the highest serum apoA-I levels in MS patients and the lowest serum apoA-I levels in SLE patients. Serum apoA-I levels was significantly elevated in female MS patients (P = 0.033; P < 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In short we believed that patients with MS and other autoimmune demyelination had significantly decreased serum levels of apo A-I.</p
Multilayered Molybdate Microflowers Fabricated by One-Pot Reaction for Efficient Water Splitting
The development of high-performance, low-cost and rapid-production bifunctional electrocatalysts towards overall water splitting still poses huge challenges. Herein, the authors utilize a facile hydrothermal method to synthesize a novel structure of Co-doped ammonium lanthanum molybdate on Ni foams (Co-ALMO@NF) as self-supported electrocatalysts. Owing to large active surfaces, lattice defect and conductive channel for rapid charge transport, Co-ALMO@NF exhibits good electrocatalytic performances which requires only 349/341Â mV to achieve a high current density of 600Â mAÂ cm-2 for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), respectively. Besides, a low cell voltage of 1.52Â V is required to reach the current density of 10Â mAÂ cm-2 in alkaline medium along with an excellent long-term stability for two-electrode configurations. Density functional theory calculations are performed to reveal the reaction mechanism on Co-ALMO@NF, which shows that the Mo site is the most favorable ones for HER, while the introduction of Co is beneficial to reduce the adsorption intensity on the surface of Co-ALMO@NF, thus accelerating OER process. This work highlighted the importance of the structural design for self-supporting electrocatalysts
Thermal properties of PEG/MOF-5 regularized nanoporous composite phase change materials: A molecular dynamics simulation
In this paper, a metal-organic framework MOF-5 loaded polyethylene glycol (PEG) nanowire was used to form composite phase change material PEG/MOF-5. The molecular dynamics method was used to simulate the thermal conductivity, melting point and latent heat by G-K function and pseudo-supercritical path method, respectively. The results show that the pores of MOF-5 promote the increase of the angle of the PEG main chain and the extension of the helical segment. Therefore, the thermal conductivity of the composite (0.60 W/m·K) is 17.6% and 100% higher than that of the PEG nanowire (0.51 W/m∙K) and the skeleton (about 0.3 W/m∙K), respectively. At the same time, MOF-5 can improve the crystallinity of the PEG to a certain extent. The predicted latent heat of PEG/MOF-5 composite material is as high as 78.4 kJ/kg with a mass filling rate of 50%. This paper explores the mechanism from a microscopic perspective in order to provide models and data for the thermal design of such materials
The SUPERCOLD-CGM survey: \\ I. Probing the extended CO(4-3) Emission of the Circumglactic medium in a sample of 10 Enormous Ly Nebulae at
To understand how massive galaxies at high- co-evolve with enormous
reservoirs of halo gas, it is essential to study the coldest phase of the
circum-galactic medium (CGM), which directly relates to stellar growth. The
SUPERCOLD-CGM survey is the first statistical survey of cold molecular gas on
CGM scales. We present ALMA+ACA observations of CO(4-3) and continuum emission
from 10 Enormous Ly Nebula (ELANe) around ultraluminous type-I QSOs at
. We detect CO(4-3) in 100 of our targets, with 60 showing
extended CO on scales of 15100 kpc. Q1228+3128 reveals the most extended
CO(4-3) reservoir of 100 kpc and is the only radio-loud target in our
sample. The CO reservoir is located along the radio axis, which could indicate
a link between the inner radio-jet and cold halo gas. For the other five
radio-quiet ELANe, four of them show extended CO(4-3) predominantly in the
direction of their companions. These extended CO(4-3) reservoirs identify
enrichment of the CGM, and may potentially contribute to widespread star
formation. However, there is no evidence from CO(4-3) for diffuse molecular gas
spread across the full extent of the Ly nebulae. One target in our
sample (Q0107) shows significant evidence for a massive CO disk associated with
the QSO. Moreover, 70 of our QSO fields contain at least one CO companion,
two of which reveal extended CO emission outside the ELANe. Our results provide
insight into roles of both the cold CGM and companions in driving the early
evolution of massive galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 27 pages, 16 figure
ECDSA White-Box Implementations: Attacks and Designs from CHES 2021 Challenge
Despite the growing demand for software implementations of ECDSA secure against attackers with full control of the execution environment, scientific literature on ECDSA white-box design is scarce. The CHES 2021 WhibOx contest was thus held to assess the state-of-the-art and encourage relevant practical research, inviting developers to submit ECDSA white-box implementations and attackers to break the corresponding submissions.
In this work, attackers (team TheRealIdefix) and designers (team zerokey) join to describe several attack techniques and designs used during this contest. We explain the methods used by the team TheRealIdefix, which broke the most challenges, and we show the efficiency of each of these methods against all the submitted implementations. Moreover, we describe the designs of the two winning challenges submitted by the team zerokey; these designs represent the ECDSA signature algorithm by a sequence of systems of low-degree equations, which are obfuscated with affine encodings and extra random variables and equations.
The WhibOx contest has shown that securing ECDSA in the white-box model is an open and challenging problem, as no implementation survived more than two days. In this context, our designs provide a starting methodology for further research, and our attacks highlight the weak points future work should address
ECDSA White-Box Implementations: Attacks and Designs from WhibOx 2021 Contest
Despite the growing demand for software implementations of ECDSA secure against attackers with full control of the execution environment, the scientific literature on white-box ECDSA design is scarce. To assess the state-of-the-art and encourage practical research on this topic, the WhibOx 2021 contest invited developers to submit white-box ECDSA implementations and attackers to break the corresponding submissions.
In this work we describe several attack techniques and designs used during the WhibOx 2021 contest. We explain the attack methods used by the team TheRealIdefix, who broke the largest number of challenges, and we show the success of each method against all the implementations in the contest. Moreover, we describe the designs, submitted by the team zerokey, of the two winning challenges; these designs represent the ECDSA signature algorithm by a sequence of systems of low-degree equations, which are obfuscated with affine encodings and extra random variables
and equations.
The WhibOx contest has shown that securing ECDSA in the white-box model is an open and challenging problem, as no implementation survived more than two days. To this end, our designs provide a starting methodology for further research, and our attacks highlight the weak points future work should address
Atomically dispersed asymmetric cobalt electrocatalyst for efficient hydrogen peroxide production in neutral media
Electrochemical hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production (EHPP) via a two-electron oxygen reduction reaction (2e- ORR) provides a promising alternative to replace the energy-intensive anthraquinone process. M-N-C electrocatalysts, which consist of atomically dispersed transition metals and nitrogen-doped carbon, have demonstrated considerable EHPP efficiency. However, their full potential, particularly regarding the correlation between structural configurations and performances in neutral media, remains underexplored. Herein, a series of ultralow metal-loading M-N-C electrocatalysts are synthesized and investigated for the EHPP process in the neutral electrolyte. CoNCB material with the asymmetric Co-C/N/O configuration exhibits the highest EHPP activity and selectivity among various as-prepared M-N-C electrocatalyst, with an outstanding mass activity (6.1 × 105 A gCo−1 at 0.5 V vs. RHE), and a high practical H2O2 production rate (4.72 mol gcatalyst−1 h−1 cm−2). Compared with the popularly recognized square-planar symmetric Co-N4 configuration, the superiority of asymmetric Co-C/N/O configurations is elucidated by X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy analysis and computational studies
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