483 research outputs found
Insecurity of detector-device-independent quantum key distribution
Detector-device-independent quantum key distribution (ddiQKD) held the
promise of being robust to detector side-channels, a major security loophole in
QKD implementations. In contrast to what has been claimed, however, we
demonstrate that the security of ddiQKD is not based on post-selected
entanglement, and we introduce various eavesdropping strategies that show that
ddiQKD is in fact insecure against detector side-channel attacks as well as
against other attacks that exploit device's imperfections of the receiver. Our
attacks are valid even when the QKD apparatuses are built by the legitimate
users of the system themselves, and thus free of malicious modifications, which
is a key assumption in ddiQKD.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Experimental quantum key distribution with source flaws
Decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) is a standard technique in current
quantum cryptographic implementations. Unfortunately, existing experiments have
two important drawbacks: the state preparation is assumed to be perfect without
errors and the employed security proofs do not fully consider the finite-key
effects for general attacks. These two drawbacks mean that existing experiments
are not guaranteed to be secure in practice. Here, we perform an experiment
that for the first time shows secure QKD with imperfect state preparations over
long distances and achieves rigorous finite-key security bounds for decoy-state
QKD against coherent attacks in the universally composable framework. We
quantify the source flaws experimentally and demonstrate a QKD implementation
that is tolerant to channel loss despite the source flaws. Our implementation
considers more real-world problems than most previous experiments and our
theory can be applied to general QKD systems. These features constitute a step
towards secure QKD with imperfect devices.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, updated experiment and theor
DiskANN++: Efficient Page-based Search over Isomorphic Mapped Graph Index using Query-sensitivity Entry Vertex
Given a vector dataset and a query vector ,
graph-based Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search (ANNS) aims to build a graph
index and approximately return vectors with minimum distances to
by searching over . The main drawback of graph-based ANNS is
that a graph index would be too large to fit into the memory especially for a
large-scale . To solve this, a Product Quantization (PQ)-based
hybrid method called DiskANN is proposed to store a low-dimensional PQ index in
memory and retain a graph index in SSD, thus reducing memory overhead while
ensuring a high search accuracy. However, it suffers from two I/O issues that
significantly affect the overall efficiency: (1) long routing path from an
entry vertex to the query's neighborhood that results in large number of I/O
requests and (2) redundant I/O requests during the routing process. We propose
an optimized DiskANN++ to overcome above issues. Specifically, for the first
issue, we present a query-sensitive entry vertex selection strategy to replace
DiskANN's static graph-central entry vertex by a dynamically determined entry
vertex that is close to the query. For the second I/O issue, we present an
isomorphic mapping on DiskANN's graph index to optimize the SSD layout and
propose an asynchronously optimized Pagesearch based on the optimized SSD
layout as an alternative to DiskANN's beamsearch. Comprehensive experimental
studies on eight real-world datasets demonstrate our DiskANN++'s superiority on
efficiency. We achieve a notable 1.5 X to 2.2 X improvement on QPS compared to
DiskANN, given the same accuracy constraint.Comment: 15 pages including reference
Cytotoxicity Study of Cyclopentapeptide Analogues of Marine Natural Product Galaxamide towards Human Breast Cancer Cells
Herein, we report the cytotoxicity of cyclopentapeptide analogues of marine natural product galaxamide towards breast carcinoma cells and the underlying mechanisms. We examined the effect of the novel galaxamide analogues on cancer cell proliferation by MTT assay and also further examined the most active compound for morphological changes using Hoechst33342 staining technique, induction of apoptosis, cell cycle phases, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation using flow cytometry in human breast cancer MCF-7 cells in vitro. Galaxamide and its analogues effectively induced toxicity in human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2, human breast carcinoma MCF-7, human epitheloid cervix carcinoma HeLa, and human breast carcinoma MB-MDA-231 cell lines. Amongst them, compound 3 exhibited excellent toxicity towards MCF-7 cells. This galaxamide analogue significantly induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner in MCF-7 cells involves cell cycle arrest in the G1 phase, a reduction of MMP, and a marked increase in generation of ROS. Particularly, compound 3 of galaxamide analogues might be a potential candidate for the treatment of breast cancer
Insect-Specific microRNA Involved in the Development of the Silkworm Bombyx mori
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous non-coding genes that participate in post-transcription regulation by either degrading mRNA or blocking its translation. It is considered to be very important in regulating insect development and metamorphosis. We conducted a large-scale screening for miRNA genes in the silkworm Bombyx mori using sequence-by-synthesis (SBS) deep sequencing of mixed RNAs from egg, larval, pupal, and adult stages. Of 2,227,930 SBS tags, 1,144,485 ranged from 17 to 25 nt, corresponding to 256,604 unique tags. Among these non-redundant tags, 95,184 were matched to the silkworm genome. We identified 3,750 miRNA candidate genes using a computational pipeline combining RNAfold and TripletSVM algorithms. We confirmed 354 miRNA genes using miRNA microarrays and then performed expression profile analysis on these miRNAs for all developmental stages. While 106 miRNAs were expressed in all stages, 248 miRNAs were egg- and pupa-specific, suggesting that insect miRNAs play a significant role in embryogenesis and metamorphosis. We selected eight miRNAs for quantitative RT-PCR analysis; six of these were consistent with our microarray results. In addition, we searched for orthologous miRNA genes in mammals, a nematode, and other insects and found that most silkworm miRNAs are conserved in insects, whereas only a small number of silkworm miRNAs has orthologs in mammals and the nematode. These results suggest that there are many miRNAs unique to insects
Methylprednisolone as Adjunct to Endovascular Thrombectomy for Large-Vessel Occlusion Stroke
Importance
It is uncertain whether intravenous methylprednisolone improves outcomes for patients with acute ischemic stroke due to large-vessel occlusion (LVO) undergoing endovascular thrombectomy.
Objective
To assess the efficacy and adverse events of adjunctive intravenous low-dose methylprednisolone to endovascular thrombectomy for acute ischemic stroke secondary to LVO.
Design, Setting, and Participants
This investigator-initiated, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was implemented at 82 hospitals in China, enrolling 1680 patients with stroke and proximal intracranial LVO presenting within 24 hours of time last known to be well. Recruitment took place between February 9, 2022, and June 30, 2023, with a final follow-up on September 30, 2023.InterventionsEligible patients were randomly assigned to intravenous methylprednisolone (n = 839) at 2 mg/kg/d or placebo (n = 841) for 3 days adjunctive to endovascular thrombectomy.
Main Outcomes and Measures
The primary efficacy outcome was disability level at 90 days as measured by the overall distribution of the modified Rankin Scale scores (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]). The primary safety outcomes included mortality at 90 days and the incidence of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage within 48 hours.
Results
Among 1680 patients randomized (median age, 69 years; 727 female [43.3%]), 1673 (99.6%) completed the trial. The median 90-day modified Rankin Scale score was 3 (IQR, 1-5) in the methylprednisolone group vs 3 (IQR, 1-6) in the placebo group (adjusted generalized odds ratio for a lower level of disability, 1.10 [95% CI, 0.96-1.25]; P = .17). In the methylprednisolone group, there was a lower mortality rate (23.2% vs 28.5%; adjusted risk ratio, 0.84 [95% CI, 0.71-0.98]; P = .03) and a lower rate of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (8.6% vs 11.7%; adjusted risk ratio, 0.74 [95% CI, 0.55-0.99]; P = .04) compared with placebo.
Conclusions and Relevance
Among patients with acute ischemic stroke due to LVO undergoing endovascular thrombectomy, adjunctive methylprednisolone added to endovascular thrombectomy did not significantly improve the degree of overall disability.Trial RegistrationChiCTR.org.cn Identifier: ChiCTR210005172
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