2,880 research outputs found
Action of larch bark in the regulation of cortisol induced stress in sheep
The effect of Larix decidua (LD) dietary administration on gene expression patterns has been evaluated in sheep under ACTH challenge. Experimental protocol was approved by local laws and regulations. Eighteen sheep at maintenance were allotted to 3 groups: CTR (negative control, without ACTH, and supplementation), ACTH (positive control, with ACTH, and without supplementation), LD (ACTH and 50 g/head/day of LD). ACTH was injected for 3 subsequent days to ACTH and LD groups and blood was sampled before (T0) and after 3 (T3) and 51 (T51) hours from the first injection. RNA extracted samples were pooled together within group and time of sampling. A custom oligoarray was synthesized using 24,384 35 -40mer probes designed from 12,194 UniGenes (NCBI) on a CombiMatrix 90K platform. Cy5 labelled samples were hybridized on the chip. Statistical analysis, performed with MeV software 4.1 (TIGR), allowed the identification of a set of genes which were up or down regulated as a consequence of ACTH treatment. Genes that resulted differentially expressed were annotated with HomoloGene system and data mining was performed with Babelomics v3.1 tool. Functional analysis showed that most of the differentially expressed genes belong to KEGG pathways involved in immune system response and signaling molecules and interaction. Larch administration was effective in counteracting the effect of ACTH injection on the inflammatory processes, restoring the physiological homeostasis
Efficient design and evaluation of countermeasures against fault attacks using formal verification
This paper presents a formal verification framework and tool that evaluates the robustness of software countermeasures against fault-injection attacks. By modeling reference assembly code and its protected variant as automata, the framework can generate a set of equations for an SMT solver, the solutions of which represent possible attack paths. Using the tool we developed, we evaluated the robustness of state-of-the-art countermeasures against fault injection attacks. Based on insights gathered from this evaluation, we analyze any remaining weaknesses and propose applications of these countermeasures that are more robust
Inductive Reasoning Games as Influenza Vaccination Models: Mean Field Analysis
We define and analyze an inductive reasoning game of voluntary yearly
vaccination in order to establish whether or not a population of individuals
acting in their own self-interest would be able to prevent influenza epidemics.
We find that epidemics are rarely prevented. We also find that severe epidemics
may occur without the introduction of pandemic strains. We further address the
situation where market incentives are introduced to help ameliorating
epidemics. Surprisingly, we find that vaccinating families exacerbates
epidemics. However, a public health program requesting prepayment of
vaccinations may significantly ameliorate influenza epidemics.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure
Dynamic renormalization group study of a generalized continuum model of crystalline surfaces
We apply the Nozieres-Gallet dynamic renormalization group (RG) scheme to a
continuum equilibrium model of a d-dimensional surface relaxing by linear
surface tension and linear surface diffusion, and which is subject to a lattice
potential favoring discrete values of the height variable. The model thus
interpolates between the overdamped sine-Gordon model and a related continuum
model of crystalline tensionless surfaces. The RG flow predicts the existence
of an equilibrium roughening transition only for d = 2 dimensional surfaces,
between a flat low-temperature phase and a rough high-temperature phase in the
Edwards-Wilkinson (EW) universality class. The surface is always in the flat
phase for any other substrate dimensions d > 2. For any value of d, the linear
surface diffusion mechanism is an irrelevant perturbation of the linear surface
tension mechanism, but may induce long crossovers within which the scaling
properties of the linear molecular-beam epitaxy equation are observed, thus
increasing the value of the sine-Gordon roughening temperature. This phenomenon
originates in the non-linear lattice potential, and is seen to occur even in
the absence of a bare surface tension term. An important consequence of this is
that a crystalline tensionless surface is asymptotically described at high
temperatures by the EW universality class.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review
A Survey for Massive Giant Planets in Debris Disks with Evacuated Inner Cavities
The commonality of collisionally replenished debris around main sequence
stars suggests that minor bodies are frequent around Sun-like stars. Whether or
not debris disks in general are accompanied by planets is yet unknown, but
debris disks with large inner cavities - perhaps dynamically cleared - are
considered to be prime candidates for hosting large-separation massive giant
planets. We present here a high-contrast VLT/NACO angular differential imaging
survey for eight such cold debris disks. We investigated the presence of
massive giant planets in the range of orbital radii where the inner edge of the
dust debris is expected. Our observations are sensitive to planets and brown
dwarfs with masses >3 to 7 Jupiter mass, depending on the age and distance of
the target star. Our observations did not identify any planet candidates. We
compare the derived planet mass upper limits to the minimum planet mass
required to dynamically clear the inner disks. While we cannot exclude that
single giant planets are responsible for clearing out the inner debris disks,
our observations constrain the parameter space available for such planets. The
non-detection of massive planets in these evacuated debris disks further
reinforces the notion that the giant planet population is confined to the inner
disk (<15 AU).Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
S-functions, reductions and hodograph solutions of the r-th dispersionless modified KP and Dym hierarchies
We introduce an S-function formulation for the recently found r-th
dispersionless modified KP and r-th dispersionless Dym hierarchies, giving also
a connection of these -functions with the Orlov functions of the
hierarchies. Then, we discuss a reduction scheme for the hierarchies that
together with the -function formulation leads to hodograph systems for the
associated solutions. We consider also the connection of these reductions with
those of the dispersionless KP hierarchy and with hydrodynamic type systems. In
particular, for the 1-component and 2-component reduction we derive, for both
hierarchies, ample sets of examples of explicit solutions.Comment: 35 pages, uses AMS-Latex, Hyperref, Geometry, Array and Babel
package
Endometriosis in the time of internet: how web navigation affects women with endometriosis
Objectives: Patients often search for health-related information on the internet allthough this trend may have some benefits, it also has some risks, such as misinformation. The aim of this study is to evaluate how Internet information seeking affect the level of anxiety in patients with endometriosis. Materials and methods: This prospective observational study was conducted at our outpatient clinic between March 2019 and December 2020. We enrolled We enrolled all patients with a confirmed sonographic diagnosis of endometriosis who had sought information about the disease prior to our visit. We divided them into two groups based on the source of information (Internet only vs multiple sources). Before the visit, we asked women to fill-in validated questionnaires about anxiety, such as the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD) and the Spielberg State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI- Y6) and the Endometriosis Health Profile (EHP) − 5. After the visit, the STAI-Y6 was resubmitted to each woman. Results: We enrolled 200 women who filled-in the questionnaires: 46 reported the Internet as the only source of information, 52 sought information also from medically qualified sources, 74 consulted only healthcare professionals, and 28 resorted to medical journals. Women who used the Internet as their exclusive source of information were younger on average and their STAI-Y6 score after the visit was significantly lower compared to other group (34.1 ± 11.5 vs 42.1 ± 14.7, p =.001). Moreover, the difference between the STAI-Y6 scores before and after our assessment was higher in these women (-18.3 ± 14.7 vs −10.3 ± 16.5, p =.003). Conclusions: Women who sought information online were younger, had lower levels of state trait anxiety after our medical evaluation, and a had a greater reduction in anxiety levels after our examination compared to women who consulted other sources to learn more about endometriosis.KEY MESSAGES Women using only Internet are younger than those who use other sources of information. Women who researched symptoms online showed higher pre-examination anxiety levels. Patients with severe pain symptoms consulted both the internet and professionals
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