Functional analysis of syp1, a novel substrate of the serine/threonine kinase prk1

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

A Performance Analysis of Hardware-assisted Security Technologies

Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is a novel hardware-assisted security technology introduced by Intel Corporation. The ambition of Intel SGX is to provide an isolated and secure execution environment for user-space applications. Even if the BIOS is compromised, the protected applications remains secure. The isolated execution environment is located in a special memory region called the enclave. Promoting and using a novel technology requires a good understanding of it. This thesis first contains a systematization of knowledge of the hardware-assisted security technologies, trusted computing and the Intel SGX. What is more, to have the best practice of using Intel SGX, we must understand its advantages and limitations, especially the performance issue. This thesis then has a discussion of where the performance overhead of Intel SGX comes from and how to evaluate and avoid them. In the final chapter of the thesis, we demonstrate how to secure a non-trivial application using Intel SGX and we have a performance analysis of the protected application

PivotNet: Vectorized Pivot Learning for End-to-end HD Map Construction

Vectorized high-definition map online construction has garnered considerable attention in the field of autonomous driving research. Most existing approaches model changeable map elements using a fixed number of points, or predict local maps in a two-stage autoregressive manner, which may miss essential details and lead to error accumulation. Towards precise map element learning, we propose a simple yet effective architecture named PivotNet, which adopts unified pivot-based map representations and is formulated as a direct set prediction paradigm. Concretely, we first propose a novel point-to-line mask module to encode both the subordinate and geometrical point-line priors in the network. Then, a well-designed pivot dynamic matching module is proposed to model the topology in dynamic point sequences by introducing the concept of sequence matching. Furthermore, to supervise the position and topology of the vectorized point predictions, we propose a dynamic vectorized sequence loss. Extensive experiments and ablations show that PivotNet is remarkably superior to other SOTAs by 5.9 mAP at least. The code will be available soon.Comment: Accepted by ICCV202

MachMap: End-to-End Vectorized Solution for Compact HD-Map Construction

This report introduces the 1st place winning solution for the Autonomous Driving Challenge 2023 - Online HD-map Construction. By delving into the vectorization pipeline, we elaborate an effective architecture, termed as MachMap, which formulates the task of HD-map construction as the point detection paradigm in the bird-eye-view space with an end-to-end manner. Firstly, we introduce a novel map-compaction scheme into our framework, leading to reducing the number of vectorized points by 93% without any expression performance degradation. Build upon the above process, we then follow the general query-based paradigm and propose a strong baseline with integrating a powerful CNN-based backbone like InternImage, a temporal-based instance decoder and a well-designed point-mask coupling head. Additionally, an extra optional ensemble stage is utilized to refine model predictions for better performance. Our MachMap-tiny with IN-1K initialization achieves a mAP of 79.1 on the Argoverse2 benchmark and the further improved MachMap-huge reaches the best mAP of 83.5, outperforming all the other online HD-map construction approaches on the final leaderboard with a distinct performance margin (> 9.8 mAP at least).Comment: The Outstanding Champion and Innovation Award in the Online HD Map Construction Challenge (CVPR2023 Workshop

Research on Steady-State Characteristics of Centrifugal Pump Rotor System with Weak Nonlinear Stiffness

Steady-state vibration response characteristics of a motion model of a centrifugal pump rotor system with weak nonlinear stiffness have been calculated by using the multiple scale method (MSM). The theoretical results were in good agreement with the numerical results. Based on the MSM and the numerical method, the effects of detuning parameter, nonlinear stiffness parameter and natural frequency on steady-state amplitude were also investigated. Finally, Lyapunov\u27s theorem on stability in the first approximation was applied for the determination of the system’s stable and unstable solution regions. The calculated results imply that the centrifugal pump rotor system with weak nonlinear stiffness exhibits typical nonlinear vibration characteristics. The variation of detuning parameter, nonlinear stiffness parameter and natural frequency can result in a jump phenomenon, and their corresponding curves present ‘hard spring’, ‘soft spring’ and ‘S’-shaped amplitude characteristic, respectively. Smaller detuning parameter and natural frequency or greater nonlinear stiffness parameter are beneficial to decreasing the steady-state response amplitude. The results can provide reference for an investigation into nonlinear vibration characteristics of a centrifugal pump rotor system

Study on empirical model and CFD about pressure rising in Cab during door closure

Aiming at the problem that there is a strong eardrum pressure in the passenger car during the closing process, two analysis and prediction methods, fast formula prediction and CFD simulation based on accurate models, are proposed. The regression model of ear pressure comfort was established by DOE method and multiple linear regression; The simulation software star-CCM+ is applied to simulate and analyze the dynamic characteristics of the flow field in the cockpit during the closing process by using the overlapping grid technology, and the pressure change curve near the ear is obtained. Finally, the CFD numerical simulation model is established by comparing and analyzing the regression prediction analysis results and the real vehicle test data. The results show that the effects of closing speed, effective opening area of pressure relief valve and air tightness of the whole vehicle on the pressure of passengers’ eardrums decrease in turn, and the prediction error of multiple linear regression equation is 17 %; The analysis error of the internal flow field dynamic characteristic model based on refined modeling is 8 %. This study provides a theoretical basis for solving the problem of rapid prediction of eardrum pressure and optimization of engineering structure

circFBXW7 attenuates malignant progression in lung adenocarcinoma by sponging miR-942-5p

Background: As a type of non-coding RNA, circular RNAs (circRNAs) are considered to be functional molecules associated with human cancers. An increasing number of circRNAs have been verified in malignant progression in a number of cancers. The circRNA, circFBXW7, has been proven to play an important role in tumor proliferation and metastasis. However, whether circFBXW7 influences progression in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains unclear. Methods: Quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to verify circFBXW7 in LUAD cell lines and LUAD tissues. Kaplan-Meier analysis was then used to compare the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) of these LUAD patients. The biological function of circFBXW7 was examined by overexpression and knockdown of circFBXW7 using MTT assay, EdU assay, wound-healing assay, and Transwell in vitro assays. To explore the mechanism of the circFBXW7, RNA pull-down assay, dual luciferase reporter assay, and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay were employed to examine the interaction between circFBXW7 and miR-942-5p. Western blot was used to study the fundamental proteins associated with the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) pathway. In vivo studies with BALB/c nude mice subcutaneously injected with cells stably overexpressing circFBXW7 were performed to further validate the in vitro results. Results: circFBXW7 was downregulated in LUAD cell lines and tissues, and LUAD patients with lower levels had shorter DFS and OS. The in vitro study showed that circFBXW7 overexpression inhibited proliferation and migration of A549 and HCC2279 cell lines. These results were confirmed by circFBXW7 knockdown, which showed the reverse effect. The in vivo model showed that the circRNA levels influenced the tumor growth. Finally, we determined that circFBXW7 target miRNA-942-5p which regulates the EMT gene BARX2. The modulation of circFBXW7 levels produced significant changes in EMT genes in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions: Our findings showed that circFBXW7 inhibits proliferation and migration by controlling the miR-942-5p/BARX2 axis in LUAD cell lines and its levels correlates with patient survival suggesting that regulating circFBXW7 could have therapeutic value in treating LUAD patients

Smith-Purcell radiation from time grating

Smith-Purcell radiation (SPR) occurs when an electron skims above a spatial grating, but the fixed momentum compensation from the static grating imposes limitations on the emission wavelength. It has been discovered that a temporally periodic system can provide energy compensation to generate light emissions in free space. Here, we introduce temporal SPR (t-SPR) emerging from a time grating and propose a generalized t-SPR dispersion equation to predict the relationship between radiation frequency, direction, electron velocity, modulation period, and harmonic orders. Compared to conventional SPR, t-SPR can: 1) Provide a versatile platform for manipulating SPR emission through temporal modulation (e.g., period, amplitude, wave shape). 2) Exhibit strong robustness to the electron-grating separation, alleviating the constraints associated with extreme electron near-field excitation. 3) Introduce additional energy channels through temporal modulation, enhancing and amplifying emission.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Evaluating the role of serum uric acid in the risk stratification and therapeutic response of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with congenital heart disease (PAH-CHD)

Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a malignant pulmonary vascular disease that negatively impacts quality of life, exercise capacity, and mortality. This study sought to investigate the relationship between serum uric acid (UA) level and the disease severity and treatment response of patients with PAH and congenital heart disease (PAH-CHD).Methods: This study included 225 CHD patients and 40 healthy subjects. Serum UA was measured in all patients, and UA levels and haemodynamic parameters were re-evaluated in 20 patients who had received PAH-specific drug treatment for at least 7 ± 1 month.Results: Serum UA levels were significantly higher in PAH-CHD patients than in CHD patients with a normal pulmonary artery pressure and normal subjects (347.7 ± 105.7 μmol/L vs. 278.3 ± 84.6 μmol/L; 347.7 ± 105.7 μmol/L vs. 255.7 ± 44.5 μmol/L, p < 0.05). UA levels in the intermediate and high risk groups were significantly higher than those in the low-risk group (365.6 ± 107.8 μmol/L vs. 311.2 ± 82.8 μmol/L; 451.6 ± 117.6 μmol/L vs. 311.2 ± 82.8 μmol/L, p < 0.05). Serum UA levels positively correlated with mean pulmonary arterial pressure, WHO functional class, pulmonary vascular resistance, and NT-proBNP (r = 0.343, 0.357, 0.406, 0.398; p < 0.001), and negatively with mixed venous oxygen saturation (SvO2) and arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) (r = −0.293, −0.329; p < 0.001). UA significantly decreased from 352.7 ± 97.5 to 294.4 ± 56.8 μmol/L (p = 0.001) after PAH-specific drug treatment for at least 6 months, along with significant decreases in mean pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance and increases in cardiac index and mixed SvO2.Conclusion: Serum UA can be used as a practical and economic biomarker for risk stratification and the evaluation of PAH-specific drug treatment effects for patients with PAH-CHD