Comparing One with Many -- Solving Binary2source Function Matching Under Function Inlining

Binary2source function matching is a fundamental task for many security applications, including Software Component Analysis (SCA). The "1-to-1" mechanism has been applied in existing binary2source matching works, in which one binary function is matched against one source function. However, we discovered that such mapping could be "1-to-n" (one query binary function maps multiple source functions), due to the existence of function inlining. To help conduct binary2source function matching under function inlining, we propose a method named O2NMatcher to generate Source Function Sets (SFSs) as the matching target for binary functions with inlining. We first propose a model named ECOCCJ48 for inlined call site prediction. To train this model, we leverage the compilable OSS to generate a dataset with labeled call sites (inlined or not), extract several features from the call sites, and design a compiler-opt-based multi-label classifier by inspecting the inlining correlations between different compilations. Then, we use this model to predict the labels of call sites in the uncompilable OSS projects without compilation and obtain the labeled function call graphs of these projects. Next, we regard the construction of SFSs as a sub-tree generation problem and design root node selection and edge extension rules to construct SFSs automatically. Finally, these SFSs will be added to the corpus of source functions and compared with binary functions with inlining. We conduct several experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of O2NMatcher and results show our method increases the performance of existing works by 6% and exceeds all the state-of-the-art works

Proteomic analysis of regenerating mouse liver following 50% partial hepatectomy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although 70% (or 2/3) partial hepatectomy (PH) is the most studied model for liver regeneration, the hepatic protein expression profile associated with lower volume liver resection (such as 50% PH) has not yet been reported. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the global protein expression profile of the regenerating mouse liver following 50% PH by differential proteomics, and thereby gaining some insights into the hepatic regeneration mechanism(s) under this milder but clinically more relevant condition.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Proteins from sham-operated mouse livers and livers regenerating for 24 h after 50% PH were separated by SDS-PAGE and analyzed by nanoUPLC-Q-Tof mass spectrometry. Compared to sham-operated group, there were totally 87 differentially expressed proteins (with 50 up-regulated and 37 down-regulated ones) identified in the regenerating mouse livers, most of which have not been previously related to liver regeneration. Remarkably, over 25 differentially expressed proteins were located at mitochondria. Several of the mitochondria-resident proteins which play important roles in citric acid cycle, oxidative phosphorylation and ATP production were found to be down-regulated, consistent with the recently-proposed model in which the reduction of ATP content in the remnant liver gives rise to early stress signals that contribute to the onset of liver regeneration. Pathway analysis revealed a central role of c-Myc in the regulation of liver regeneration.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study provides novel evidence for mitochondria as a pivotal organelle that is connected to liver regeneration, and lays the foundation for further studies on key factors and pathways involved in liver regeneration following 50% PH, a condition frequently used for partial liver transplantation and conservative liver resection.</p

Rapid Neutralization Testing System for Zika Virus Based on an Enzyme-Linked Immunospot Assay.

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that has been associated with neuropathology in fetuses and adults, imposing a serious health concern. Therefore, the development of a vaccine is a global health priority. Notably, neutralization tests have a significant value for vaccine development and virus diagnosis. The cytopathic effect (CPE)-based neutralization test (Nt-CPE) is a common neutralization method for ZIKV. However, this method has some drawbacks, such as being time-consuming and labor-intensive and having low-throughput, which precludes its application in the detection of large numbers of specimens. To improve this problem, we developed a neutralization test based on an enzyme-linked immunospot assay (Nt-ELISPOT) for ZIKV and performed the assay in a 96-well format. A monoclonal antibody (mAb), 11C11, with high affinity and reactivity to ZIKV was used to detect ZIKV-infected cells. To optimize this method, the infectious dose of ZIKV was set at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 0.0625, and a detection experiment was performed after incubating for 24 h. As a result, under these conditions, the Nt-ELISPOT had good consistency with the traditional Nt-CPE to measure neutralizing titers of sera and neutralizing antibodies. Additionally, three neutralizing antibodies against ZIKV were screened by this method. Overall, we successfully developed an efficient neutralization test for ZIKV that is high-throughput and rapid. This Nt-ELISPOT can potentially be applied to detecting neutralizing titers of large numbers of specimens in vaccine evaluation and neutralizing antibody screening for ZIKV

Activated monocytes in peritumoral stroma of hepatocellular carcinoma foster immune privilege and disease progression through PD-L1

Macrophages (Mφ) are prominent components of solid tumors and exhibit distinct phenotypes in different microenvironments. We have recently found that tumors can alter the normal developmental process of Mφ to trigger transient activation of monocytes in peritumoral stroma. We showed that a fraction of monocytes/Mφ in peritumoral stroma, but not in cancer nests, expresses surface PD-L1 (also termed B7-H1) molecules in tumors from patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Monocytes activated by tumors strongly express PD-L1 proteins with kinetics similar to their activation status, and significant correlations were found between the levels of PD-L1+ and HLA-DRhigh on tumor-infiltrating monocytes. Autocrine tumor necrosis factor α and interleukin 10 released from activated monocytes stimulated monocyte expression of PD-L1. The PD-L1+ monocytes effectively suppressed tumor-specific T cell immunity and contributed to the growth of human tumors in vivo; the effect could be reversed by blocking PD-L1 on those monocytes. Moreover, we found that PD-L1 expression on tumor-infiltrating monocytes increased with disease progression, and the intensity of the protein was associated with high mortality and reduced survival in the HCC patients. Thus, expression of PD-L1 on activated monocytes/Mφ may represent a novel mechanism that links the proinflammatory response to immune tolerance in the tumor milieu

Regulation of Asymmetrical Cytokinesis by cAMP during Meiosis I in Mouse Oocytes

Mammalian oocytes undergo an asymmetrical first meiotic division, extruding half of their chromosomes in a small polar body to preserve maternal resources for embryonic development. To divide asymmetrically, mammalian oocytes relocate chromosomes from the center of the cell to the cortex, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms. Here, we show that upon the elevation of intracellular cAMP level, mouse oocytes produced two daughter cells with similar sizes. This symmetrical cell division could be rescued by the inhibition of PKA, a cAMP-dependent protein kinase. Live cell imaging revealed that a symmetrically localized cleavage furrow resulted in symmetrical cell division. Detailed analyses demonstrated that symmetrically localized cleavage furrows were caused by the inappropriate central positioning of chromosome clusters at anaphase onset, indicating that chromosome cluster migration was impaired. Notably, high intracellular cAMP reduced myosin II activity, and the microinjection of phospho-myosin II antibody into the oocytes impeded chromosome migration and promoted symmetrical cell division. Our results support the hypothesis that cAMP plays a role in regulating asymmetrical cell division by modulating myosin II activity during mouse oocyte meiosis I, providing a novel insight into the regulation of female gamete formation in mammals

Limit Circle/Limit Point Criteria for Second-Order Superlinear Differential Equations with a Damping Term

The purpose of the present paper is to establish some new criteria for the classifications of superlinear differential equations as being of the nonlinear limit circle type or of the nonlinear limit point type. The criteria presented here generalize some known results in literature

Design of a Chamfered Structure on Consequent-Pole Vernier Permanent-Magnet Machine

The consequent-pole (CP) Vernier permanent-magnet (VPM) machine has been developed over the last decade. In VPM machine, the CP structure can produce considerable torque with a half volumn of the PMs compared with the regular structure, so the cost is reduced and the mechanical strength is increased. In this paper, an improvement of chamfering structure on a CPVPM machine is proposed to alleviate the flux leakage and increase the torque density. The chamfered structure is easily machined and will not influence the robustness of the rotor. The comparison results show that under the same volume and copper loss constraint, the proposed structure has smaller cogging torque, smaller torque ripple, larger torque density and larger power factor