the upper bounds on differntial characteristics in block cipher SMS4

SMS4 is a 128-bit block cipher with a 128-bit user key and 32 rounds, which is used in the Chinese National Standard for Wireless LAN WAPI. In this paper, all possible differential patterns are divided into several sections by six designed rules. In order to evaluate the security against the differential cryptanalysis of SMS4, we calculate the lower bounds on the number of active S-Boxes for all kinds of sections, based on which the lower bounds on the number of active S-Boxes in all possible differential patterns can be derived. Finally, the upper bounds on differential characteristic probabilities of arbitrary round numbers are given, which can be used to estimate the strength of SMS4 against differential attack and linear attack

Primary biliary cirrhosis associated with rheumatoid arthritis

Primary biliary cirrhosis(PBC) is a slowly progressive autoimmune disease of the liver which mainly affects women aged between 35 and 45 years.Prolonged liver inflammation can cause scarring, leading to cirrhosis. Although 50 to 60 percent of patients are asymptomatic at diagnosis, they will develop symptoms later. PBC can be associated with arthralgia and other non-hepatic autoimmune diseases, such as Sjögren’s syndrome, sicca syndrome, thyroiditis and scleroderma. PBC and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been suggested to coexist in 1.8 to 5.6% of patients with PBC, but data supporting this association are scarce. We report two cases of such an association and discuss how to improve threapy

Cardiovascular Risk Factors and its Transition: An Ongoing Cohort Study in Chinese Kazakhs

Studies on the prevalence of risk factors and the incidence for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are limited in Kazakh population. By incorporating nomads, farmers, and urban residents, aged 30 years or older, in a cohort study, we investigated the characteristics of cardiovascular risk factors and their temporal trends that arose from the urbanization and subsequent changes in the lifestyle in a Kazakh population with 1668 participants. We used current guidelines and the monitoring trends and determinants in cardiovascular disease (MONICA) standard to define cardiovascular events. Kazakhs had a high prevalence rate of hypertension (45.3%), and this prevalence was much higher than the national average in China. Prevalence of two or more risk factors was highest among urban people and lowest among nomads. Urban residents have the highest prevalence of hypercholesterolemia and obesity compared with farmers and nomads. However, unlike other studies, our data indicate that young men had the highest prevalence of dyslipidemia, and it decreased significantly thereafter. Crude rates of incidence and mortality for acute cardiovascular events were 742 and 194 per 100,000 people, respectively; the standardized rates were 926 and 272 per 100,000 people, respectively. The findings from this study demonstrate the pervasive burden of cardiovascular risk factors and the related acute cardiovascular events in Kazakhs, particularly BP in Kazakh nomads

Effects of galactooligosaccharides on maternal gut microbiota, glucose metabolism, lipid metabolism and inflammation in pregnancy: A randomized controlled pilot study

BackgroundGut microbiota of pregnant women change with the gestational week. On the one hand, they participate in the metabolic adaptation of pregnant women. On the other hand, the abnormal composition of gut microbiota of pregnant women is more likely to suffer from gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Therefore, gut microbiota targeted treatment through dietary supplements is particularly important for prevention or treatment. Prebiotic supplements containing galactooligosaccharides (GOS) may be an intervention method, but the effect is still unclear.ObjectiveThis study aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of prebiotic intervention in healthy pregnant women during pregnancy, and to explore the possible effects of intervention on pregnant women and the influence on gut microbiota as preliminaries.MethodsAfter recruitment in first trimester, 52 pregnant women were randomly assigned to receive GOS intervention or placebo containing fructooligosaccharides. 16S rRNA sequencing technology was used to detect the composition, diversity and differential flora of gut microbiota. Lipid metabolism, glucose metabolism and inflammatory factors during pregnancy were also analyzed.ResultsThe adverse symptoms of GOS intervention are mild and relatively safe. For pregnant women, there was no significant difference in the GDM incidence rates and gestational weight gain (GWG) in the GOS group compared with placebo (P > 0.05). Compared with the placebo group, the levels of FPG, TG, TC, HDL-C LDL-C, and IL-6 had no significant difference in GOS group (P > 0.05). For newborns, there was no significant difference between GOS group and placebo group in the following variables including gestational week, birth weight, birth length, head circumference, chest circumference, sex, and delivery mode (P > 0.05). And compared with the placebo group, the GOS group had a higher abundance of Paraprevotella and Dorea, but lower abundance of LachnospiraceaeUCG_001.ConclusionsGOS prebiotics appear to be safe and acceptable for the enrolled pregnancies. Although GOS intervention did not show the robust benefits on glucose and lipid metabolism. However, the intervention had a certain impact on the compostion of gut microbiota. GOS can be considered as a dietary supplement during pregnancy, and further clinical studies are needed to explore this in the future

N-tert-Butyl-5α-androstane-17β-carboxamide

The title compound, C24H41NO, is a new derivative of the anti-HIV steroid 17β-(N-tert-butyl­amino­carbon­yl)androst-4-en-3-one. There are four rings in the structure and these are trans-fused. The three six-membered rings exhibit chair conformations, while the five-membered ring adopts an envelope conformation

Mucinous intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: a distinct variant

Mucinous variant of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCC) is rare, and its clinicopathological features and prognosis are far less clear. Six patients who had iCCs with more than 50% of mucinous component and 79 conventional iCCs were included in the study. The mean size of mucinous and conventional iCCs was 6.2 cm and 6.0 cm, respectively. The majority of patients (83%) with mucinous iCC presented at T3 stage or above, compared to 28% of the conventional group (p < 0.01). Three patients with mucinous iCC (50%) died within 1 year. The average survival time of patients with mucinous iCCs was significantly reduced compared to that of conventional group (9 months vs 2 years; P < .001). Immunohistochemistry was performed on 6 mucinous and 12 conventional iCCs with matched age, sex and stage, which revealed positive immunoreactivity in MUC1 (83% vs 58%), MUC2 (33% vs 17%), MUC5AC (100% vs 42%), MUC6 (50% vs 0), CK7 (83% vs 83%), CK20 (0 vs 17%), and CDX2 (17% vs 0) in mucinous and conventional iCCs, respectively. Molecular studies showed one mucinous iCC with KRAS G12C mutation and no BRAF or IDH1/2 mutations. Mucinous iCC is a unique variant that constitutes 7.2% of iCCs. It is more immunoreactive for MUC1, MUC2, MUC5AC and MUC6. Unlike adenocarcinomas of colorectal primary, mucinous iCCs are often CK7+/CK20-/CDX2- and microsatellite stable. Patients with mucinous iCC likely present at advanced stage upon diagnosis with shorter survival time compared to the conventional counterparts

Topic evolution and sentiment comparison of user reviews on an online medical platform in response to COVID-19: taking review data of Haodf.com as an example

IntroductionThroughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients have sought medical advice on online medical platforms. Review data have become an essential reference point for supporting users in selecting doctors. As the research object, this study considered Haodf.com, a well-known e-consultation website in China.MethodsThis study examines the topics and sentimental change rules of user review texts from a temporal perspective. We also compared the topics and sentimental change characteristics of user review texts before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. First, 323,519 review data points about 2,122 doctors on Haodf.com were crawled using Python from 2017 to 2022. Subsequently, we employed the latent Dirichlet allocation method to cluster topics and the ROST content mining software to analyze user sentiments. Second, according to the results of the perplexity calculation, we divided text data into five topics: diagnosis and treatment attitude, medical skills and ethics, treatment effect, treatment scheme, and treatment process. Finally, we identified the most important topics and their trends over time.ResultsUsers primarily focused on diagnosis and treatment attitude, with medical skills and ethics being the second-most important topic among users. As time progressed, the attention paid by users to diagnosis and treatment attitude increased—especially during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when attention to diagnosis and treatment attitude increased significantly. User attention to the topic of medical skills and ethics began to decline during the COVID-19 outbreak, while attention to treatment effect and scheme generally showed a downward trend from 2017 to 2022. User attention to the treatment process exhibited a declining tendency before the COVID-19 outbreak, but increased after. Regarding sentiment analysis, most users exhibited a high degree of satisfaction for online medical services. However, positive user sentiments showed a downward trend over time, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak.DiscussionThis study has reference value for assisting user choice regarding medical treatment, decision-making by doctors, and online medical platform design